


Something Like Nostalgia

by galaxyofstarks



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I cannot do tags for the life of me, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Logan and Veronica always find their way to each other, Neptune is hell but we love it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26566636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyofstarks/pseuds/galaxyofstarks
Summary: It's been 8 years since Veronica has talked to Logan, but when she hears that he has gone missing on his line of duty, her life gets turned upside down as she realizes that no matter how deep you bury them, feelings and memories have a way of always coming back.
Relationships: Logan Echolls & Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 68
Kudos: 72





	1. Prologue - April 28

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place 8 years after season 3, so about a year before the events of the movie would have happened. It diverges from movie and season 4 canon, but follows pretty much everything the movie has established to have happened in the years following season 3 (Logan joined the Navy, Veronica went to Stanford, then Columbia, etc.).
> 
> My knowledge of how the Navy works is very very shallow, so I apologize for any misrepresentations.
> 
> One last thing, if you see the words "colour" or "centre", please know I am not illiterate, just Canadian ;) I've used Canadian spelling throughout the story.
> 
> I am posting all the chapters at once because there are some large discrepancies in their length! I hope you enjoy it <3

New York City

Tuesday April 28, 2015

10:47 PM

It had been a long, exhausting day (and evening) studying at the library for the upcoming finals for Veronica Mars, and all she wanted to do when she got home was to change in her pajamas and nurse a glass of wine while flipping through the channels until the guilt caught up to her and she went back to her textbooks before a very short night of dreamless sleep. Those days she was so tired after her hours of reading and highlighting and rereading and notetaking that she fell like a log from the moment her head hit the pillow to the moment the irritating sound of her alarm clock woke her in the morning.

When she unlocked her minuscule apartment, kicked off her boots and set down her bag by the door, she breathed a sigh of relief. She absentmindedly turned on the TV to the late evening news and headed to her room to get out of her jeans. She was heading back to the living room (that also acted as her kitchen and doubled as a dining room) when the screen flashed with red and white letters spelling out _Breaking News_ with more enthusiasm than the tragedies the breaking news usually meant should warrant. She read _Two Navy planes and their pilots missing_ at the bottom of the screen and turned up the volume, sitting down on her couch, wine forgotten.

“Just confirmed by our sources, the US Navy has lost eyes on two fighter planes going on a test run this afternoon. No explanations were given as to the how and why, but our sources report the planes collided and have since not been seen. The two pilots, Lieutenants Carter and Echolls, have not given any sign of life since the incident, and the Navy is actively looking for them, in the chance one or both of them survived the crash –”

Veronica’s mouth went dry and all colour drained from her face. She couldn’t have heard right. Even if she had, nothing was telling her this Lieutenant Echolls was Logan Echolls. She didn’t even know his rank, she had barely caught wind of the fact that he had joined the Navy some years prior. For all she knew, it was a family tradition and he had a number of cousins who were also Navy pilots, and one of _them_ was missing. Something in the back of her mind told her that her reasoning was flimsy at best, desperate and delusional at worst. She told that part of her mind to shut the fuck up and turned the TV off, heading for the bottle of white in her fridge. Flipping through the channels didn’t need to be part of the program for her to enjoy her little respite from studying.

She soon went back to her textbooks anyway, needing something to occupy her mind. When she found she couldn’t focus on the words dancing in front of her, she called it off for the night and went to bed earlier than she had in weeks.

Her sleep wasn’t as unperturbed as it usually was when finals approached so closely. She kept hearing her own voice echoing in her mind, her tone harsh and biting, but she could never make out the words she was saying. Deep down she knew where, or rather, when, her dreams had decided to take her that night. It had been years since she’d replayed those conversations in her head, but they had never left her. And suddenly, because of two pilots’ bad luck, they were back in full force. She’d considered time and time again that maybe her words had been too brazen, but there was nothing she could do about it. She hadn’t ever cared enough to reach out and correct any of it. But the next morning, when she woke up, she wished she’d silenced those demons. How ironic that of all the horror she had lived, what haunted her was a bad breakup. Only in Neptune. Then she realized she wasn’t in Neptune anymore and blessed yet again her timely escape from the town that had corrupted her teen years.


	2. April 29

Wednesday April 29, 2015

12:24 PM

Veronica was barely paying attention to her lunch, barely paying attention to the textbook propped open on her bag on the table either. Like it had done all night and all morning, her mind kept wandering to Southern California and the seemingly never-ending emptiness of the Pacific Ocean. Imagining that Logan was lost somewhere in those waters had a strange sense of fittingness to it. She’d seen him emerging from the Pacific Ocean so many times, waiting on the resolutely dry sand as he had run-in after run-in with the salty waves. From the top of his surfboard, the ocean had been more of a home to him than the house his parents insisted was his home ever was. If he had to be lost somewhere, at least maybe in those waters he’d find his way. Veronica knew her thoughts were absurd, but she couldn’t help thinking them. She remembered Logan himself telling her how well he knew the waves and their whims.

_She closes her book with a snap, looking up and shielding her eyes from the blinding light reflected by the waves. In between the sparks of light along the shore, she spots him, the lone surfer who conquers the waves so early a Sunday morning in July. This part of the beach isn’t very crowded at any time of the year, the tourists preferring whiter and finer sand, and locals more or less avoiding anything pertaining to beaches in periods of high touristic traffic. But it’s Logan’s favourite, the beach where his mother took him when his father was away. The beach where he learned to surf. And Veronica likes it too, the peace and quiet it offers. So this summer, it’s their spot. She knows he gets up early most days so he can catch a few waves before the sun gets so intense Veronica tells him to wear sunscreen. She doesn’t particularly like being up this early herself, but sometimes she’ll set her alarm, drive up here and surprise him with breakfast on the beach. Just because she can._

_When he spots her, a figure in blue against the beige sand, he smiles and quickens his pace. She wishes she could bottle up his sunned-up smile, tuck it away and save it for rainy days. But she can’t, so she just drinks it all up in an instant, guzzles it, and waves at him with a laugh. He comes to a stop when he reaches her spread out towel and puts one knee down to get on eye level with her._

_“Hi,” she says, the laugh still somewhere in her throat._

_“Hi,” he replies softly, still smiling from ear to ear. “A Sunday, huh? Must be a special occasion.”_

_“Backup woke me up by barking. He needed to pee,” she replies coolly, but he knows it isn’t true and smiles even wider._

_“Did he, now?” he distractedly asks, turning to the pitbull and scratching behind his ears. “Well, thank you, Backup, for this Sunday morning gift.”_

_Veronica simply smiles again, leaning her cheek down to Logan’s shoulder, still shining with droplets of Pacific Ocean. He turns his head to rest his chin at the top of her head, breathing her in. They stay like this a few moments, just letting themselves get lost in the moment. It’s nothing, it’s barely worth remembering. It’s such a mundane moment, such a singularly innocuous instant, that Veronica fears one day she’ll forget those moments existed, that the summer of 2006 hadn’t only been grief and building everything back up for more changes in their lives._

_When she pulls back, planting a kiss on Logan’s cheek, she digs in her bag to retrieve what she collected for their breakfast._

_“I know I’m a snack,” she starts and Logan rolls his eyes because that should be his brand of sarcasm, not hers, “but I brought some actual food for the surfing champ here.”_

_He groans. “Did you seriously just call me ‘champ’?”_

_“Did I? Can’t remember. Now, come on, you want any?” she deflects, shaking the bag of croissants at him. “They were warm,” she adds. “I’m not sure if they still are.”_

_“It doesn’t matter,” Logan waves off, kissing her softly. “Thank you,” he whispers against her lips, and she smiles like an idiot._

_“It’s nice seeing you out there, in your element,” she offers instead, taking the pastries out of the bag and handing him one._

_He takes a minute to answer, then wipes the crumbs off his lips. “It’s nice you’re taking the time to see my home.” He gestures behind him at the waves crashing lazily on the wet sand. “I feel like over there I understand what’s going on, and I can predict the unpredictable. Here the unpredictable is staring down the barrel of a gun and wrestling it out of my best friend’s little brother’s hands.” He shrugs. “You offer a nice buffer between the realities.”_

_She doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so she just takes his hand. Looks into his eyes. And places a small kiss on the corner of his lips to bring back the smile that was there a few seconds earlier. It works._

Veronica shook her head. Those moments were long gone. And if Logan was in the Pacific Ocean, he didn’t have his surfboard, and predicting the unpredictable probably didn’t go as far as your friend’s plane crashing into you. She in fact did not know if Lieutenant Carter was a friend of Logan’s, and didn’t know if it was better if he was or wasn’t. And maybe it didn’t matter because maybe it wasn’t even Logan who had gone missing. And maybe even _that_ didn’t matter because finals were starting on Monday and she really needed to go back to her studying.

6:03 PM

She had managed to make it through the afternoon with barely any thoughts about the mysterious lieutenants lost at sea, but even through her delusion on her own disinterest, Veronica couldn’t pass up turning on the evening news to check on the world’s health. Because she was an informed and responsible citizen who wanted to know what was going on in the world she inhabited, naturally.

She didn’t even have to kid herself for long, because the news item she actually cared about was the first they covered. The two pilots still hadn’t been found, but the Navy (who had evidently been forced into making official statements after the news had leaked to the press) assured they were still looking for the two men (dead or alive, the news anchor added and Veronica ignored him). Besides, Lieutenants Carter and Echolls were well trained, capable men, who had a higher chance of survival than most in the same conditions (if they hadn’t died in the explosion itself, the news anchor added again, and it took Veronica a lot of self control not to turn off the TV). The screen returned to the presenters, who commented that as more time ticked away, so did the chances of finding the men alive. Veronica of course knew this from her years in the P.I. business but didn’t like it being told to _her_. She was just about to turn the TV off when one of the anchors commented offhandedly that it wasn’t the kind of press _one_ of the two Navy pilots usually got. The others around her actually laughed (Veronica was seething as it was dawning on her what they meant), and agreed that Logan Echolls had mostly owed his press coverage to his would-be murdering movie star of a father and his explosive relationship with pop star Bonnie DeVille. It was even a surprise to most that he was a functioning member of society, part of the Navy, to top it off. There, Veronica truly did press the control that shut them up.

It was confirmation that Lieutenant Echolls was indeed Logan. She hadn’t really believed that it was anyone else, no matter how much she tried to tell herself it very well could be another person. And she could have confirmed it at any moment during the day, entered Logan’s name in the search bar of her phone’s search engine and seen the outpouring of news articles mentioning his full name. But she had preferred not to look, keeping up the possibility that it wasn’t him, because she knew that when she searched she usually found things she wished she had never stumbled upon.

It really shouldn’t have been affecting her so much to know that someone she hadn’t spoken to or seen in nearly 8 years had gone missing in his line of duty. But then again, Logan would never be _just_ anything, would he? He would never just be that man she hadn’t contacted in years, no matter how many years it stretched into. They had been through too much together. Lilly’s death, his mother’s suicide, his father trying to kill her when she found out he was a murderer, Felix’s death, Cassidy’s demise, the Hearst rapist, Dean O’Dell’s death. A few convictions and prison stays, and everything in between. All these traumatic events had created something between them that, no matter what, would always linger.

She wanted to say that was it. Shared trauma, formative years spent together battling who knew what. But there was more, and she kept pushing it back at the back of her thought process because it would just complicate the already taxing trip down memory lane the news cycle had triggered.

She had loved Logan. Very, very much. And she had barely told him at all. But he knew. He knew, he knew, he knew, and she knew he knew and they were happy in the knowledge that they loved each other and Logan said it and Veronica didn’t. They loved each other so much they sometimes couldn’t think straight and did stupid things and hurt each other in the process, blinded by the need to fiercely protect the other from more trauma. They loved so fully that they couldn’t stay apart for more than a few weeks before getting back together without resolving a single thing between them. And they crumbled apart again and again and again because they wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t change, and they fell back together again and again and again because they had to be together. They just had to, and now they had been apart for 8 years because they couldn’t be bothered to take the time to figure out what pieces of the puzzle needed to be removed or flipped or replaced for it to be perfect, all those years ago.

Veronica felt a wetness to her cheek and wiped it away angrily. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. Soon Logan would be back on his feet, grinning his stupid smirk at the world, flying his stupid plane again, driving his stupid expensive car. And she’d just have been stupidly worrying in her New York City apartment, miles and miles away, for nothing, over someone who didn’t mean anything to her anymore.


	3. April 30

Thursday April 30, 2015

7:26 AM

There’s the thing about sleep: when you need it to stay at bay to do some work, some thinking, or even some partying, who even cares, it’s always creeping up, but when you need it to take you so it washes away all the thoughts you wish you weren’t having, so it relieves you from the constant rebounds of those thoughts all over your brain, it pouts and runs away laughing maniacally. In that way, sleep is a total bitch, but it also really resembles a certain long departed Lilly Kane. And no matter what, Veronica really needed to rely on Lilly Kane and keep her memory and her goodness intact, or guilt would eat her up from inside. Was her relationship with sleep twisted and possibly even more toxic than the fleeting relationships she’d dabbled with in her teens? Probably. But also, she needed sleep like a lifeline, in the most literal possible sense, so her thoughts didn’t linger on it too much. And anyway, she hadn’t quit her relationships because of their toxicity. (Setting fires to pools, running away with an illegitimate daughter, sleeping with Madison Sinclair, those had been dealbreakers. But toxic back and forth bickering and hiding secrets? Eh. She lived and breathed for that. Back then. Because she wasn’t like that anymore, of course.) So really, now that no one was pointing out the obvious red flags to her, there was no way she’d actually make the effort to give in her membership card and decide it was time to quit sleep.

Those were the kinds of thoughts that battled in her head as she waited in line at the campus cafeteria for another dose of morning coffee because oh boy did she need it, if the absurdity of her thoughts were any indication. They were better than what had plagued her all night. (They weren’t so much thoughts as dreams, but it was all the same idea, her subconscious throwing some concepts at the forefront of her mind as if to tell her what she had to be thinking about. Constantly.) At least her diatribe on sleep didn’t make her see Logan drowning in the Pacific Ocean, alone in the middle of nowhere, still strapped to the seat of the fighter plane he had been piloting when he crashed. Or bleeding from a gash on his head interestingly similar to the one that had ended Lilly’s life. Their lives were a cute little full circle moment like that.

Veronica was probably one sleepless night away from packing her things, going back to Neptune, telling everyone there to either just stop living these dramatic lives or die right then so she could stop worrying and thinking of her years there, and then coming back right in time for finals. Really, she needed her relationship with sleep to get better soon, or her father and Wallace would have a lot of explaining to do to the whole town and the thought was exhausting. Well, _every_ thought was exhausting, really, but flying all the way to California especially.

Her caffeine fix safely in her hand, Veronica sat down at her usual table, thankful no clueless undergrad had decided to use it. Not that it was _her_ table, but she appreciated the idea of a routine, and that table was close enough to several exits to help her escape should some gun-toting psychopath enter the cafeteria. Just an example. Deadly smoke would work, too.

She took her phone out of her pocket and opened her news app. Now that she had confirmation Logan was indeed the one missing – still missing – she had no reason to keep avoiding news outlets that could keep her updated on whether he was (a) still missing, (b) found alive, or (c) found dead. She kept option c tucked in a far corner of her mind, never thinking it fully enough, to make sure it didn’t start thinking it was important and had a real chance to win here.

_Bonnie DeVille apparent source of missing Navy pilots leak_

Well, that sure sounded interesting. Veronica clicked on the headline. She’d half expected the article to be worthless clickbait, so to see an actual journalistic investigation had been conducted to bring those fresh baked news to her breakfast plate was a surprise. She wanted to say it was a nice surprise, but then one of the names in the byline stopped that thought dead in its tracks. Norman Phipps. That bastard really had kept an unhealthy obsession with tapping phones of people in contact with Logan Echolls, if the article was anything to go from. Logan’s superior had apparently called Carrie (named Bonnie throughout the whole article) to report what had happened to Logan and his colleague, as she was listed as the person to call should anything happen to him. Some “journalists” (Veronica truly felt the quotation marks were necessary when talking about the likes of Norman Phipps) had thankfully be tapping the pop star’s phone, enabling them to share this crucial piece of classified information with the world. What a gift.

Carrie was all in all not guilty of anything in the leak of information, if only of being the person Logan thought would care the most if he died. Or got seriously injured, or whatever. Veronica knew “if he died” was what Logan had thought of when he’d had to give a name. Carrie was probably used to getting dragged in the mud for things she hadn’t done, but if Veronica were to venture a guess, she’d say it was the first time Carrie had been accused of leaking classified government information. It was probably better than some of the stuff (and people) she’d been accused of doing over the years in the tabloids.

Still, Norman Phipps… She hated the man and his indiscretions, but she had to admit she was a little bit grateful for his intrusion in Carrie and Logan’s personal life. At least, she knew what was going on with Logan, that he was missing. Not that she could do _anything_ about it, but she liked knowing things, perhaps too much, according to many of her peers. Including Logan. Against her will, her mind drifted back to the last time she’d had to deal with the pesky journalist who had posed as Logan’s long-lost half brother.

_It’s been a few days since Veronica has been over to Norman Phipps’ to retrieve his grandfather’s watch, and Logan still thinks about the ordeal more than is probably healthy. His little knight in shining armour is sitting beside him, absently running her fingers along his shoulder as she slurps his drink and steals one of his fries. It would probably bother him if it was anyone else. But it’s Veronica, and he’d most likely let her do just about anything and get away with it, as long as it doesn’t put her in danger._

_“Whatcha thinking about?” she asks him, looking up to his frown. “Let it be me,” she adds with mock puppy dog eyes._

_It makes him crack a smile._

_“Always, bobcat,” he half-whispers, snatching a fry of his own and plopping it in his mouth._

_“No, seriously, what’s on your mind? You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”_

_“People actually use ‘uncharacteristically’ in real life conversation?”_

_“Logan.”_

_“Fine.” He sighs and detangles himself from her, her arm dropping from around his shoulders and coming to rest on his knee. They can’t seem to stop touching, as if anchoring one another to the moment. “I was thinking about Charlie. And Norman. All that charming setup.”_

_Her brows furrow and she raises her other hand to run circles on his back, looks at him to make him look up from the table._

_“None of it is your fault, you know that,” she tells him, more a statement than a question. The question is elsewhere. Will you stop blaming yourself for everything? is the question she asks through those words, silent yet potent._

_He sighs again and cups her face with his hand, letting himself get lost in her worried eyes._

_“Yeah.”_

_“Let me take your mind off of that,” she decides and drags him with her as she stands up._

_“How?” Logan asks cautiously._

_“You’ll see,” she replies, the glint in her eyes so familiar. Logan could have fallen in love with that glint of mischief alone, had the rest of her not been so damn amazing too._

_She takes him back to the beach, their beach, in her Saturn. It’s late October, they don’t come back here often at this time of year, but he follows her to the sand and when she sits down without even a blanket or towel, he sits down next to her. Their clothes will be so full of sand later, but if she doesn’t care, then he doesn’t care._

_“I have a stakeout later, if you want to come.” She wiggles her eyebrows._

_“Nice try. I’ve already been to one of those and had the time to realize it is not nearly as hot as you would have me believe.” He’s playing with the sand, letting it pass through his fingers over and over again. Seeing the same scenes dance in front of his eyes._

_“Take off your clothes.”_

_“What?” Logan asks with a laugh, looking up at her, bewildered._

_“We’re going for a swim,” she commands, standing up._

_“_ You _are going skinny dipping?” he raises an eyebrow, dubious._

 _“Not_ skinny _dipping. Just dipping, you pervert,” she offers with a tilt of her head and a pout._

_“You hate the water,” he tells her, fighting a smile._

_“No I don’t! I like exploring your home,” she adds with a purse of her lips and a look boring into his._

_He nods and takes his shirt off, then runs off towards the water with her. When she splashes him gleefully, thoughts of “I love you” whiz through his mind, but he doesn’t say them, because he doesn’t want to spook her. Instead, he hopes his lips molding into hers as he cups her face with his salty wet hands say the words as clearly as if they were spelling out the syllables._

It always seemed to come back to that beach. That day, they’d had to use Logan’s sandy shirt to dry themselves off before getting back into Veronica’s car, but they were laughing the whole time, all thoughts of Norman Phipps and Charlie Stone drowned by the waves. Part of her wanted to do the same thing now, but she was hours from the West Coast, and kissing Logan until she forgot where they were wasn’t an option anymore. Not that she wanted to kiss him anymore, just kiss _someone_ , and her brain just happened to be overwhelmed by Logan these past few days. Right then she could still feel the ghost of his lips on hers, a play-by-play look back at their very first kiss at the Camelot, 10 years ago, almost to the day… But that was normal for any relationship that had been as chaotic as theirs: it stuck in the mind, almost as a warning to never pull that crap again.

_Just stand up and go to class, Veronica, stop thinking._

5:39 PM

“Hey, Wallace, how’s it going in the wonderful world of physics teachers?”

“It’s going. Still attracted to the ground at 9.8m/s2. You know, the usual.”

Veronica rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself. She pinched her phone between her shoulder and ear, gathering her books.

“And what about you?” Wallace adds, as if the question hadn’t been an obvious implication of him calling her during his break between classes.

“Oh, nothing much. Cramming for finals.” She switched the phone to her other ear and straightened up, starting to walk to the subway station. “Watching the news,” she added, quieter.

She could practically hear him nod on the other end of the line.

“The Mets aren’t doing so hot this season,” she told him, as if to prove that she did keep up with news that did not pertain to missing Navy officers. Granted, she didn’t care about the Mets and their season, but she’d seen an headline in passing.

“Uh-huh,” Wallace nodded. “And how are you, um, feeling with the news. You hanging in there?”

“You know the Mets don’t particularly affect my mood,” she joked in an attempt to keep it lighthearted. It wouldn’t fly with her father, but Wallace might just drop it.

“Veronica.”

No such luck, it seemed. She sighed.

“I haven’t seen him in 8 years, Wallace. This has nothing to do with me. It’s in the past. Sure, I hope they find him and that he’s doing good, but… I just don’t have the energy to be emotionally invested in him anymore. I haven’t for years. I don’t have the right to monopolize worrying about Logan Echolls anymore.”

She immediately wished she hadn’t said his name. It hadn’t crossed her lips in longer than she remembered, and pronouncing it felt like a negation of everything she had said.

“There’s not a limited amount of worrying about one person that’s divided up between all the people in the world, V,” Wallace simply replied, softly.

“I’m not one of your students, Wallace.”

“No, they listen to me.” He said it as a joke, but they both knew there was a ring of truth to the words.

“Thanks for checking up on me,” Veronica said, just as softly as he had talked to her. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so. I’m always there if you need anything. Or want anything. Even permanent records, although don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“I don’t think I’ll be needing any of those anytime soon, but thank you, Wallace.”

“Take care, V.”

“Bye.”

Sher terminated the call and looked up at the subway arriving in the station. It really did feel good to hear her best friend’s voice, regardless of how painful his acknowledgment of everything going on was. It was more painful than she’d thought possible, because admitting to even having the pain in the first place caused her another layer of pain. Just pain, pain, pain. Could the memory of Logan Echolls one day bring her something besides that, besides the pain and the melancholia?

If that idiot managed to pull through and not die, perhaps it might.


	4. May 1st

Friday May 1st, 2015

1:43 AM

Sleep was not coming. Veronica had turned in early in the hopes that in the long hours she’d spend in her bed, at least a few would be comfortingly enveloped by the blissful ignorance of sleep. So far, her plan had not been even remotely successful.

_You’re out of my life. Forever._

She kept hearing herself again and again, the disgusted look on her face jumping at her, his split lip and miserable expression wounding her.

_This is the moment, Logan. Where it is just… done._

How could she explain to anyone that there was no possible outcome where she would be done with Logan Echolls? No one could understand quite what he’d been to her, how she’d been with him. What they’d been together. She could be done trying to be with him, she could be done being civil with him, she could be done talking to him, even. But 8 years after she had told him that it was done, he was still keeping her up at night, and she was still worried senseless about what had happened to him. It had been two entire days since he’d gone missing, and she knew very well people didn’t usually come back from 48 hours in freezing waters with no food or resources.

She couldn’t get the image of Logan (too young in her mind to properly the reflect the man he had become) drowning, suffocating, fighting uselessly against the waves out to swallow him, out of her head. It hurt all the most to think that the waters he’d considered his home, the waters he’d maintained he understood, would be the ones that took him from her. She shook her head, correcting herself. Not from her, from the world. From everyone. From Carrie Bishop. Not Veronica.

And the last thing she would have told him would be… she couldn’t even fully remember. It was in the Hearst cafeteria, after he’d beat up Gory Sorokin (for her, she felt it deserved to be mentioned in this particular train of thought). He had apologized and she had told him it would take time… She sat up in her bed and buried her face in her hands. Too much time, it had taken too much time. She at least remembered the look on his face when she’d last seen him. The background was blurry, the other faces undefined and long forgotten, but there was something almost triumphant emanating from him. And it would forever be the last time she saw him.

She didn’t want it to be. She wanted other memories to be the last ones, she wanted new memories she could look back upon with a smile and not a bitter aftertaste swirled with years of sadness. When she grew old and her ancient memories faded, she didn’t want Logan to be one of them.

She wanted Logan.

The thought was terrifying, she felt her whole body shake with small sobs as she took in the very probable possibility that she would never get to tell him. But he didn’t need to know. He had a new life, he had Carrie, and she had her own life in New York, and those lives were separate and that was fine. It used to be fine. Because, watching the seconds fade away on her alarm clock (tick, tock, each another instant that meant Logan could be gone, truly gone), she realized she couldn’t be okay with the idea that the last time she would have seen him would have been in a _cafeteria_ , smiling and wiping blood on his shirt. Leaving a mess in his wake, although that seemed to be an appropriate metaphor. She couldn’t stomach the idea that two lives that had been so intertwined during their formative years had to be so far from one another, so distant and unrelated. And she wanted to make them collide again. Maybe even just a slight brush, initiate a contact, form a mental picture to treasure for a few years and let the threads get back their separate ways for a small while.

She could still feel the tears rolling down her cheeks, her hardened resolve to _see him again_ not altering the situation in any way. He was still lost at sea. He could still be dead. He could still die before she or anyone got to see him one last time. For the first time, she let thoughts she’d buried far back creep into her conscience and she whispered in the dark, “he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s gone and he’s not coming back, not for me, not for anyone,” rocking back and forth and trying to calm her billowing sobs.

She eventually fell asleep, exhaustion getting the best of her for once.

4:06 AM

She jumped upright, a shudder coursing through her as a wake-up call.

“I still love Logan,” she panted to no one, because even if there was someone there, there was no one to she could really tell.

Then:

“ _Shit_.”

6:39 AM

Loving someone wasn’t the same as being _in love_ with someone, right? Of course not. Residual affection due to intense passion in past relationships was perfectly normal, and something that happened to a lot of exes who stayed friends. Never mind the fact that Veronica had clearly told Logan it didn’t work for them to be friends right around the last time she ever spoke to him. They were still friends in spirit. She knew he’d have her back and she’d have his, if push came to shove. Right? So loving Logan was a normal feeling to have, and it was just especially heightened right then because she was thinking of and worrying about him. When she didn’t think of him because he was keeping out of trouble, well then she didn’t feel she loved him as much as she did in that moment, and that was just how it worked with people one wasn’t in love with. Thank god for the morning cup of coffee that enabled her to have such sound and reasonable logic. What a treat.

_“I love the way you smell,” she says, her head buried in his chest._

_Her choice of words gives away how tired she is, how little time she allows herself to think about her words before she lets them tumble out of her mouth, so he lets himself innocently urge her further, deciding not to point out what she just admitted to._

_“After sex?” he asks into her hair, a smirk tugging at his lips._

_“All the time,” she sighs. She doesn’t add “when it’s not alcohol” but it hangs in the air between them._

_His thumb traces circles on her hipbone and he kisses the top of her head, closing his eyes to breathe her in. She drags her fingers lightly across his chest, her mind seemingly elsewhere._

_“I also love the way you smell,” Logan offers._

_Veronica giggles – yep, she definitely is tired, she isn’t usually a very giggly person – and tilts her head up to look at him._

_“You’ll say anything to keep me here all night,” she yawns but the teasing glow in her eyes remains._

_“Why don’t you? Stay here all night, I mean?” he adds._

_She shakes her head._

_“I told my dad I’d be home tonight.”_

_She starts lifting the covers but he makes a face and grabs her hip to keep her there._

_“Just a little bit longer,” he moans._

_“Logan.”_

_“Hm?”_

_“Open your eyes.”_

_He does, and she’s smiling down to him._

_“I have to go,” she tells him with a peck on the lips, and he closes his eyes again, all but pouting at her._

_She doesn’t move, just keeps hovering above him, and after a few seconds he opens his eyes again and sits up, gently lifting her with him._

_“Come on, I’ll drive you home, you’re too tired to drive.”_

_‘I’m not!” she protests, but she lets him pick up some clothes from the floor and put them on. When she’s gathered her things and they’re both fully dressed, she corners him against the bedroom door and kisses him sweetly._

_“Let’s go,” she says._

Veronica didn’t know what it was about the Columbia cafeteria that was such a good catalyst to years-old memories of Logan Echolls, but she really ought to report it and see if anyone else was experiencing whiplash inducing throwbacks to days spent dating Navy pilots.

She’d been getting to campus earlier every day that week, fleeing the apartment that awoke unwelcome memories and realizations. Something about the impersonal walls of the university should ground her and get her to focus on her textbooks (only 3 days until finals started!), but it didn’t seem to do the trick.

5:29 PM

Keith took a quick look at his watch. 2:29PM. Veronica should be finishing up her day in New York, it was a safe time to call her for their weekly update.

“Hey Dad,” her brisk voice sounded from the other side.

“Hey there, oh spawn of mine.”

“Gross.”

He laughed a little.

“How are you doing? Your finals are soon, aren’t they?”

He heard her breathe out harshly against the phone.

“Uh, yeah. They start on Monday. They’ve been keeping me busy. A lot of studying, not a lot of sleeping. Normal finals week stuff.”

“Ah, knock ‘em dead, honey. I know you’ll do great.”

She nodded against the phone, and he’d had enough conversations with her to recognize it without a need to verbalize her agreement.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You don’t seem very perky.”

“Yes, because I am always the perkiest person in a room,” she replied dryly, and he didn’t even have to try to see her eyes rolling in their orbits. “I’m fine,” she added after a second, softer. “Just tired.”

“Okay.”

A moment of silence passed, comfortable. He decided to let her get to it in her own time. If he pushed, she would just clam up.

“Did you watch the news recently?” she finally asked, too innocent.

It took him a second, and then it clicked. Logan. Was that really what was bothering her, after all those years? It seemed almost ridiculous that he was once again the one to blame for his daughter’s troubled mood. Keith cleared his throat slightly.

“I did,” he carefully replied.

She hummed, not commenting further.

“It’ll be okay,” Keith finally told her.

“Yeah.”

He let another pause pass before speaking up again.

“Have a nice evening, honey. Don’t stay up too late.”

“You too, Dad.”

7:21 PM

“You know what’s a totally cool and totally normal idea for a girl to have on the Friday night before the last weekend to study for finals?”

“Shoot,” Wallace replied, pretty sure whatever his best friend was about to suggest would not be cool _or_ normal.

“A spur of the moment trip to Southern California to see her BFF!” She had injected the sentence with so much fake enthusiasm Wallace could practically feel it dripping out of his own phone.

“Are we suddenly 12-year-old girls?” He decided to go for a comment on the BFF part instead of the completely bonkers idea she had thrown his way.

“12-year-old girls don’t have the budget to take spur of the moment trips to Southern California,” Veronica replied. “Law students crumbling under debt don’t either, but I have the ever-crucial access to a credit card.”

“Veronica, what are you doing?”

“Coming to pay you a visit! See the sights.” She huffed and he pictured her sitting on a suitcase to get it to close. “So anyway,” she continued, “will you pick me up at the airport and can I stay at your place?”

He sighed, knowing she wouldn’t change her mind.

“I want it on record that I warned you it was a terrible idea. And really bad timing. Your plane better not have any delay.”

“Thanks, Wallace, you’re the best. My plane leaves at 10:35 from JFK, so I should land around 1:30AM, your time.”

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

“How?” Wallace asked to an empty line. He shook his head. What did she think she would achieve by flying to Neptune like that?

8:13 PM

What _did_ Veronica think she would achieve? She didn’t really have an answer other than the sudden compulsion to buy a ticket online when she had gotten home and then it had been too late to backtrack because she had to start getting her suitcase ready for a weekend trip to Neptune.

Now, looking out the window at the sun setting over the approaching airport, she started doubting her ridiculously sudden decision. She didn’t know if it was just her seeking the comfort of the people she loved most (her father, Wallace, Mac) or if it was the pull of Neptune’s beaches and the memories they brought with each wave.

_He puts the car in park and turns to look at her fiddling with her bag in the passenger seat._

_“Have a nice trip,” he offers, unsure of what is the appropriate thing to say when dropping someone off at the airport. “Take plenty of pictures,” he adds lamely._

_She smiles at him and reaches across the console to place a small kiss on his lips._

_“I will. I’ll have every angle of every soul of New York City captured in film.”_

_“Careful, or they won’t let you come back until you’ve returned them all to their owners.”_

_“I’ll make sure to be sneaky about it. They won’t see me coming.”_

_“No one can.”_

_She kisses him again before turning to open the door of his Xterra. God, she needs sunglasses to look at the outside of that thing. He hops out of his seat and comes to meet her at her door, then goes to take her suitcase from the boot._

_“Want me to come with you?” he asks, but he already knows the answer._

_“I’ll be fine.” She holds her hand out for her suitcase and it takes him a second to realize what she’s asking for._

_“Okay, well… see you in a week!” he tells her, faux cheer painfully transparent._

_When she bites her lip, he takes a step forward and grabs the back of her neck in one hand, the small of her back in the other, and kisses her fully. She drops her bags and they’re in a movie, and her hands snake up his back to settle on his shoulders._

_“See you in a week,” she breathes against his lips._

_“Yeah.”_

_He finally backs away and lets her go, his eyes following her retreating form until she’s out of his sight. He misses her already._

The taxi driver helped her get her suitcase out of the trunk and she set off into the terminal, ready to make the trip back to the airport at which she’d caught so many cheaters red-handed, the airport at which she’d waited for her dad until the very last minute for their trip to New York together, making the Neptune-NYC trip alone for the first time and wishing she had let Logan stay a little longer with her.


	5. May 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the longest of the story - hopefully it's worth the long read.  
> This is also where V arrives in Neptune, so all times mentioned at the beginning of sections are on Pacific time, not Eastern like previously.  
> Watch the times for this chapter, as there is a bit of jumping around, coming back to the past, that kind of thing.

Neptune

Saturday May 2, 2015

1:26 AM

One of the great things about airplanes was that they were the _perfect_ study spot. It wasn’t very common to be forced to sit down and forbidden access to Internet connection for hours on end, surrounded by strangers with no desire to strike up a conversation. It really created an environment for Veronica to be fully immersed in her textbooks for a few hours, and she almost declared (internally) that airplane trips were the best possible trick to focus during the leadup to finals. Almost. She knocked off points for the cost.

Wallace was waiting for her at baggage claim, as promised, and even through his exhausted air, he smiled brightly when he saw her.

“V!” he greeted with a hug.

She hugged him back, grateful for her best friend. It had been too long since either of them had made the trip.

“So, did you pick up any chicks on the way to pick me up? I’m told airports are the perfect place for a meet-cute,” she told him as they started walking together to the parking, donning her best impression of a frat boy to insist on the word “chicks”.

He looked at her strangely, as if deciphering her.

“What?” she asked, taking in his weird demeanour.

“I take it you haven’t seen the news?” Wallace cautiously broached.

“Wallace, I’ve been miles in the air for 6 hours. No, I didn’t see the news.” Her voice tried to be steady and her tone light, but there was a tremor to her words and her heartbeat had accelerated.

He decided now was not the time to tease or circle around the subject.

“They found them, V. They found Logan and the other.”

“And?” she pressed on, her heart stuck in her throat and her breath completely stopped.

“They’re alive. In critical condition, but they think they’ll make it. The news broke around 11.”

Veronica breathed a sigh of relief, a breath she’d been holding for days finally getting to be exhaled. She didn’t realize she’d stopped in the middle of the hallway until a businesswoman bumped into her.

“Oh, sorry,” Veronica said, taking a step to the side. Wallace put a hand to her back to lead her to the elevators towards the parking.

“Come on.”

2:48 AM

“V, I love you, but go to sleep,” Wallace groaned.

Ever since they’d gotten home, she had been alternating between pretending everything was fine and she really was in Neptune just for the fun of it and pestering Wallace for further information. He didn’t have any.

“Okay, okay.”

She slipped in between the covers of Wallace’s sofa bed and settled her head on the pillow.

“Good,” Wallace declared once she’d pointedly looked at him as if to show she was listening to him. “If there are news, we’ll see them in the morning.”

She nodded. He was about to turn off the lights and walk to his room, but he turned around at the last second.

“Does your dad know you’re here?”

“Here in Neptune or here in your sofa bed?”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“No,” she finally admitted, sheepishly. “I’ll see him tomorrow. Today. After the night,” she waved off.

Wallace made a noncommittal sound and nodded before effectively heading to his bed.

7:09 AM

“Wallace. Hey, Wallace.”

“Wha-”

He did a double take, having momentarily forgotten he was temporarily housing a small blonde with little respect for sleeping patterns.

“Since when are you up this early?” he asked, incredulous, after taking a quick look at his alarm clock.

“Since I started law school,” she replied with a raised eyebrow. “Listen,” she continued, sitting on his bed, “they’re doing a press conference this afternoon in San Diego.”

“We’re not the press,” Wallace told her, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, even if he knew it would do little to deter her. “But we can watch it on TV.”

“Come on, where’s your spirit of adventure?” she asked him with a poke and he groaned. “I can get us press passes.”

“Veronica –”

“Wait, no. I can’t really anymore. But my dad can.”

“Veronica, why can’t we just watch it on TV? It’s live too,” Wallace complained. He loved his best friend, he really did, but sometimes (often) her whims were too much for him.

“I don’t pay you to question me,” she replied, her eyes wide open in mock indignation.

“You’ve never paid me,” he pointed out.

And she was currently staying in his apartment. She must have realized how little power she had in the situation, because she changed tactics.

“Please?” she said, holding out her hands in front of her in a praying gesture.

He sighed. He’d known he’d cave when she had started talking, anyways.

“Fine.”

10:46 AM

Veronica walked into the Mars Investigations office, looking at the desk that had once been hers to study and take small cases, waiting for her father to be done with whoever he was meeting.

She debated sitting on the couch where clients usually waited, but she thought, what the hell, and settled into the receptionist chair. She could hear voices from inside her father’s office, but not make out what they were saying, so she just opened and closed the drawers to explore their contents. Not much had changed in the years of her absence.

Suddenly, Keith opened the door, letting a young woman walk out before following her. Veronica was half certain of the woman’s identity upon seeing her shocking hair colour, but confirmation only came when she turned her face towards Veronica and –

“Carrie?” Veronica asked, taken aback.

“Veronica?” both Keith and Carrie echoed, much more surprised than her.

“Miss Bishop is a client,” Keith cleared up before it all became too awkward. (It was too late for that, but all three of them pretended otherwise.)

Carrie gave a curt nod to Keith, seemed to hesitate on how to address Veronica, settled on a small wave that was more of a lone wrist movement, and left Mars Investigations. As soon as she was gone, Keith turned wide-eyed to his daughter.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Paying everyone a visit. I’m staying at Wallace’s,” she told him, as if it cleared everything up. “Can you get us press passes for this afternoon?” she added, innocently running her fingers along the side of the desk.

“Backpedal here, honey. You have your finals on Monday.”

“And a plane ticket for Sunday evening ready to go.”

He rubbed his face with his hand before looking at her again.

“This is about Logan, isn’t it?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. “No,” she reiterated with more force, “I’m enjoying my last weekend before finals, unwinding and using the California sun as a perfect backdrop for my frenzied studying.”

She almost added something about how planes were the perfect place to study, but she felt it would be a tad too much.

“Wallace knew about this?” Keith finally asks.

“Not until I called him to tell me to pick me up at the airport,” she offered.

“And when was that?”

“I don’t know, half an hour before I left for JFK.”

She was trying desperately hard to seem aloof and like this was simultaneously a wonderfully thought out plan and a spur of the moment decision based entirely on her studies. Even in her head it sounded weak.

“So,” she pressed on, “about those press passes…”

“No,” Keith asserted, looking seriously at his daughter.

“You know I’ll manage to get them anyway, come on, let’s just save time,” she pleaded. “Please,” she added after a second.

“Would you, though? You’ve lost your ways, and your license is expired.”

“How do you know that?”

“Licenses expire after 3 years, honey, I’ve been renewing mine for a while.”

“Please?” she repeated.

“Fine,” he replied after a beat, “only if you promise not to do anything stupid.”

He headed back into his office to pick up the phone and she followed him in.

“When have I ever?” she asked, innocently.

He gave her a look, like “do you really want me to answer that?” and turned away when his interlocutor picked up on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Rich, listen…”

12:21 PM

“I have the goods,” Veronica singsonged when she opened the door to Wallace’s apartment.

“The goods, lunch, or the goods, the passes I don’t even want?” he asked, drying his hands on a towel and coming to meet her at the door.

“Uh, the passes. But I can go get lunch,” she pointed out.

He practically rolled his eyes, grabbed his jacket and pushed her back out the door, locking behind them.

“Let’s eat out,” he suggested. “You call Mac and ask her if she wants to meet up with us.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at a table of a nice beachside café, explaining to an unbelieving Mac how they had ended up in their current situation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think of getting a pass for you, too,” Veronica apologized to the brunette.

“No, no, don’t worry. I don’t even want to _know_ what you’re going to be up to this afternoon,” she waved her off.

“Just watching a press conference,” Veronica replied, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“You know they have these wonderful things called TVs and you can watch those kinds of things live now? Even online, all you need is Internet connection.”

Veronica made a face at Mac, who laughed.

“She used her dad’s connections instead,” Wallace remarked.

“Just as useful,” Veronica confirmed.

“Seriously though, V, what _are_ we going to do there?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “See where the moment takes us.”

Wallace and Mac shared a look.

“What?”

“Look, Veronica… not be rude or anything…” Mac started.

“But ‘where the moment takes us’,” Wallace emphasized with air quotes, “doesn’t often turn out too good.”

“Just saying,” Mac concluded, taking a sip of her drink.

“Guys, I am so appalled at your assessment of the situation,” Veronica said, mock offended. “Just… we’ll see.”

She didn’t mention she agreed with them and that she was regretting more every second to have set off for this ridiculous undertaking.

“Oh hey,” she said suddenly, remembering, “guess who I saw coming out of my dad’s office this morning?”

“Vinnie Van Lowe.”

“Van Clemmons.”

“The pope.”

“Dick Casablancas.”

“Some guy you had arrested and who still hates you.”

“Wrong on all accounts. It was Carrie Bishop.”

“Pop star Bonnie DeVille, Carrie Bishop?” Mac asked.

“Logan’s ex, Carrie Bishop?” Wallace asked instead, eyeing Veronica.

“Ex?” That gave her pause. She thought they were still together.

“That’s what you call someone you used to date,” Wallace mentioned.

“Ha-ha.” She made a face at him. “No, I didn’t know they’d broken up.”

“You mean to tell me you flew across the country the weekend before your finals for a guy you thought was in a relationship?”

“I didn’t think you were in a relationship.”

At Wallace’s “don’t give me that crap” eyes, she backpedaled.

“Okay, fine, yes. It’s not like I want to get back together with him. I didn’t even know they’d found him when I booked my flight,” she reminded them. “I just… Look. I don’t even know why I’m here,” she admitted.

“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said since you got here, Veronica Mars,” Wallace said softly.

She glared at him but continued. “I don’t know how to handle all of it. At all. I didn’t even realize I still had… feelings for him, or whatever, before I saw the news. I guess I just miss him. I want to see him again, really see him, in person, to make memories. So the last time I see him isn’t that time in the cafeteria when he’d just beaten up a Russian mobster.”

“How are you going to make memories if you just look at him from far away at a press conference?” Mac asked softly, her voice entirely devoid of judgment.

Veronica shrugged. “I’m not sure. This might come as a shock to you guys, but I didn’t really think this through.”

Wallace feigned surprise. “You didn’t?” he exclaimed.

She smiled a little. “Nope. But I did think through my order and I’m starving, do you think they’ll get there soon with our plates?”

Just like that, she changed the subject around and they let her. They would deal with the rest later.

2:54 PM

The press conference was going to be starting anytime now. The real reporters and journalists were ready, their cameras and microphones angled at the door through which whoever was supposed to make the statement would be coming out. They were speaking in their earpieces or chatting amongst themselves, they were keeping busy, they were definitely not wondering if maybe they were going to faint before 3PM arrived. Or at least, they were doing a heck of a better job than Veronica at hiding it.

Wallace squeezed her hand reassuringly. He wasn’t usually much for physical affection, and he’d been dispensing it much more than usual since she’d gotten to Neptune, so the only conclusion she could draw was that she looked like shit. Or that he was worried about her going ballistic. Two conclusions, neither of them especially reassuring. But at least Wallace was trying.

The presence of all those journalists wasn’t especially reassuring, either. She didn’t associate highly publicized events she’d attended with exceptional joy. The last time she’d been surrounded by so many journalists was probably at Aaron Echolls’ trial, right after he’d been cleared of all charges. That was definitely not an especially good memory. Before that, there had been Logan’s trial, for Felix’s murder, the previous summer. He’d also been cleared of all charges, but that had been a relief. Given that he was not only her boyfriend at the time, but also, you know, innocent.

_He squeezes into the car door, keeping his face down to avoid the camera flashes just waiting to plaster his face on front pages. Veronica looks at him sympathetically, squeezing his hand between both of hers wordlessly._

_After a few moments, she speaks up._

_“At least now I know I’m not dating a murderer.”_

_It’s pretty lame, as far as jokes go, and bittersweet given that she accused him of exactly that mere weeks earlier. But at least she’s trying to be reassuring. It doesn’t quite work because not only does it bring back the vivid memories of being questioned for Lilly’s murder, it also freaks him out a little that she thinks he needs reassuring. If Veronica Mars tries to comfort you using a line as lame as this one, it probably means she’s worried. And if Veronica Mars is worried, you should probably run for your life._

_But he’s nothing if not completely reckless regarding his own life, so he just leans in and kisses her cheek._

_“What a relief,” he breathes against her cheekbone, then pulls back to his seat._

_She smiles at him sadly, then tries to plaster a smile on her face._

_“Do you want to celebrate your first evening as a free man?” she asks, too perky._

_He doesn’t really, but what the hell._

_“What do you have in mind?”_

_He forces himself to look forward to what she’s offering. It has to beat a day in court, at the very least._

_“Um… paperwork,” she says after thinking for a few moments._

_He actually laughs._

_“Is that really how you usually celebrate?”_

_“No, but I figured it would make you laugh,” she replies with a bright smile, cupping his cheek in her hand._

_“That’s very smart, Miss Mars.”_

_She ducks her head and shrugs, as if to say, “duh”._

_“We can watch a movie at my place. I think I still have popcorn.”_

_“That sounds great,” he says, before diving to capture her lips into his._

_They don’t really watch much of the movie in the end._

Veronica was brought back to reality by Wallace, who nudged her in the ribs. She looked up to see an officer who looked highly ranked – she had no knowledge of military ranks, but if she had to guess, she’d say he was way, way above Logan, judging by the way he walked and how others around him seemed nervous in his presence – entering the room and settling at the table that had been set for the conference. He sat in the second of three chairs, in the middle. He tapped his microphone and introduced himself. (He was a spokesperson for the Navy, blah blah blah, Veronica wasn’t even paying enough attention to catch his name or his rank.) What did catch her attention was when he mentioned Logan’s name.

“Lieutenant Echolls is recovering fast and well. He was surprisingly lucid when he was found, and could relay to us most of what had happened. He’s been resting most of the day.”

 _Where is he where is he where is he_ , Veronica kept thinking as the man kept talking. Aside from the obvious relief that Logan was not only okay, he was fine, he was _well_ , Veronica kept feeling amazed at the man she had known so long. She knew he was tough, of course, she knew he’d survived a lot, but still, 3 days stranded as sea was not something she’d thought he’d have to go through. Then again, neither were nearly any of the crazy situations they’d gotten themselves into in their teens.

The man kept talking, and she learned that Lieutenant Carter was not doing as good as Logan, but he was still conscious and stable. She learned about how the accident had happened and while Wallace seemed to understand a lot of the physics involved, she was still confused as to how Michael Carter’s plane had just stopped responding and barrelled into Logan’s. It sounded an awful lot like someone had been sabotaging the Navy to her, but that did not seem to be the reaction around her so she kept it to herself. After the crash, Logan had managed to open his parachute and by some miracle it hadn’t been ruptured by the remains of the planes. He’d lost sight of his colleague and only seen him again over a day later, when they had both drifted to the same large debris of plane, they didn’t know whose it was, but they held onto it as a lifeboat and waited. And then, they had lost track of time (or at least, Logan had, and Lieutenant Carter wasn’t in any state to tell the story), until a helicopter found them and brought them to the nearest island to rest, eat and drink.

It sounded like a heroic yet kind of boring story, the kind they heard every few years about a new set of unwitting heroes, but to Veronica it felt brand new. _But where’s Logan, where’s Logan, where’s Logan, is he going to take one of those chairs, please please please_. Wallace placed a hand on her arm to steady her. It didn’t especially work, but she smiled at him.

“I imagine you have questions for our men of the hour, so I will let them answer,” the Navy spokesperson finally said and Veronica completely lost control of her heartrate, couldn’t even begin to try to slow it down.

A man walked out the door and it wasn’t Logan, Veronica noticed with a frown. Then she noticed the wheelchair the stranger was pushing and she recognized Lieutenant Carter sitting in it from the numerous pictures of him she’d been exposed to in the past days. He looked exhausted, barely awake, but he was smiling weakly and almost cheekily.

And behind them – yep, that was Logan. He was wearing his uniform, not the fancy one they showed in the pictures of him as an officer, but recognizably a uniform regardless. As he walked in, head modestly down, and sat besides the Navy official with a curt nod, her face fell.

It wasn’t that he didn’t look good, because he _did_ , but he looked so… spent. _Well, no shit, Veronica, he just spent several days at sea without food or the possibility to rest_. He was probably one of the only people who had slept worse than her since Tuesday. Except he’d had a reason, and she’d been crazy. Maybe she still was. Maybe she always had been.

He also looked uncomfortable, like the presence of the press was putting him on edge. Given his relationship with the media over the years, it was hard to blame him for it.

More than anything though, she saw the softness of his features, how the years had rounded the sharp edges he used to have, the defensive anger and violence evaporated. It was a surprise, but a nice one. He still looked handsome, incredibly so, and her heart hammered in her chest at the idea of reaching out to him and touching him. He was too far for Veronica to attempt it, and even then, she wouldn’t have. It wasn’t a good moment.

He leaned into the microphone to answer a question she hadn’t heard, and her legs almost gave way beneath her at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t think this was, uh…” he seemed to hesitate, “brave, to survive. I mean, yes, choosing to live is an everyday struggle for some, and I commend you all for doing it –”

Veronica would have snorted at his fumbling if it wasn’t painfully endearing to hear how quintessentially Logan it was. This wasn’t Logan Echolls, rich jackass, it was Logan Echolls, secret admirer of literature. Although the fact that it came as a surprise to some how much he loved literature baffled her, because he had a rotation of inspirational quotes as his voicemail greetings, for crying out loud. She vaguely wondered if she could convince Wallace to give Logan a call, to see what his voicemail was like…

“But we were just in a bad place at a bad time. Or the right place at the right time to get press coverage, if you want to see it that way.”

She saw the smirk before it appeared, there just a fraction of a second before he realized he had an image to uphold. He looked almost bored by the realization.

Logan answered most of the (admittedly, kind of boring) questions as his friend (Veronica had decided he deserved the title, based on the worried looks Logan occasionally shot him) was definitely not in condition. She wondered why they even bothered to have him taken out of the hospital, since he was doing so poorly. Politics, she assumed.

The press conference was coming to an end, the man from the beginning had regained control of the conversation, and Logan had sat back, further from his mic. She could see him looking over the crowd slowly, probably just to have something to do, and she knew she should have looked away then, ducked behind someone taller than her (so, almost anyone), blend into the crowd. But she didn’t and when his eyes swept over the spot where she was standing, he stopped abruptly. She maintained eye contact for half a second, for three days, for all eternity, she couldn’t tell time because her heart had stopped, just stopped pumping blood, that had to be it, then he blinked and looked away. She hadn’t even managed to school her features into any kind of reaction, and all she could see in his was surprise. Shock, maybe. She didn’t know if it had been good or bad shock, she had been too busy enjoying for a moment that those eyes were on _her_ again. It was selfish and it was stupid but she wanted them to come back. _Come on, look around the room again_. But he was standing up, they were all standing up, the cameras were shutting off and the people in front of her were fussing and she couldn’t see him after he stood up and when she got a good view of the front of the room again, he was gone and Wallace was guiding her out.

5:17 PM

Logan rubbed his hands across his face again. Another time, another time, palms firm against his eyelids, no, the image was still stuck there. He couldn’t get it out of his head, no matter how much he wanted, and maybe that was the problem, maybe his will was too weak, too fake. Maybe he didn’t want to forget that he had imagined Veronica Mars, of all people, at the press conference.

Again.

When Dick barged into the room without knocking, for once Logan welcomed the interruption.

“I watched you on TV, man,” Dick greeted his friend, slapping his back for good measure. “Oh, shit, sorry, does that hurt? I shouldn’t be hitting you.”

“I’m okay, Dick,” Logan cut in.

He was, surprisingly, given the circumstances. He was still tired, and his stomach was in knots, and his muscles were all passably sore, but he was overall in stellar shape for someone who had been stranded at sea for a few days. Michael couldn’t say the same.

“It’s good to have you back,” Dick told him, and Logan felt strangely touched. He didn’t show it much, and his way of coping was not one people usually recognized as such, but Dick hadn’t had it so easy either, and Logan was one of the very few people he still had left. Dick had never quite been the same after their senior year of high school, at least on the inside. Logan either, for interconnected reasons, so they’d stuck together, the reasons implicit and unspoken.

When he and Carrie had broken up, again, after an enormous fight (which was the only kind of fight they ever had anymore, screaming, shouting, pointing fingers, swearing, glass smashing and exaggerated sobs), it had felt natural to crash at Dick’s. He hadn’t been there long, a few days at most, before he’d been deployed again, so he hadn’t had time (nor had the idea come to his mind) to change his emergency contact back to Dick at the Navy, so the man had only heard about the crash by the news, which had to be tough. Carrie didn’t like Dick very much anymore, not enough to call him to tell him his best friend was missing, but then again, neither did most people.

They’d been friends, once upon a time, Carrie and Dick. Party buddies, really. But it had fizzled out around the same time Carrie and Logan had grown closer. And closer and further apart and closer and further apart. He’d told himself this breakup would be their last, they couldn’t go through it all again, the drugs, the lies, the cheating, he wouldn’t go back to her, but now with the whole “gone missing” ordeal, he’d probably have to. It was just natural, she’d say she was off drugs, wouldn’t actually be, he’d believe her anyway, and then it would explode again. She had called him a few times throughout the day, probably to take news. He hadn’t called back, and she hadn’t left any messages for him to listen to instead. He knew he’d have to call at one point, though, and knew that when they saw each other again, they’d probably start their whole routine again. So he delayed the phone call.

As if hearing his thoughts, his phone rang again. He looked to verify it was Carrie, but did a double take when he saw “Neptune High School” in the caller ID. Intrigued, he picked up.

“Hello?”

He heard an intake of breath, and the line went silent. Weird. He didn’t think more of it.

“So, how was the whole, uh… lost at sea business?” Dick asked, half as an attempt to start a conversation, half because he really wanted to know. “What did you do during all that time?”

What _had_ he done during all that time? He wasn’t sure. Time had meshed together in a blur. It could have been a few hours, it could have been a few weeks. They’d told him it had been 3 days, so he believed them, but he couldn’t have said so himself. There were the sunrises and sunsets he could have counted, but he hadn’t.

“Tried to escape my thoughts and the tricks my mind created, mostly,” Logan answered, which was true.

Dick gave a low whistle.

“Imagine being stuck in your own head for days without any booze…” he said, apparently not bothered by how much it showcased how fucked-up both of their lives were. “Even without the whole starving and being lost part, I wouldn’t have survived it.”

Dick hadn’t really learned to keep his ghosts in check. He kept swearing by alcohol, marijuana, and partying (although the marijuana had been prescribed to him, so it was an improvement over his college days). Logan had had the Navy’s structure and therapy reigning his own demons in. If he’d thought the days he’d spent had been hell, he couldn’t imagine how horrible they would have been without the years of therapy he had under his belt.

On the plus side, maybe he would have seen something other than a snarky blonde reappearing around him over and over again.

“It was… interesting. To see the images my brain decided to conjure. Not always what you’d think,” Logan offered.

“You dreamt of Ronnie, didn’t you?”

Logan’s mouth fell open, and he closed it quickly. He cleared his throat and looked at his own hands.

“How, uh… how did you know?”

Dick hesitated for a second, as if trying to decide if Logan was joking or not.

“You were saying her name, man.” Dick looked concerned, which was alarming.

“When?” Logan asked weakly.

“In your sleep, this morning.” Dick started gesturing around, probably trying to imitate him. “’Veronica, Veronica, no!’ That kind of stuff. For like ten minutes.”

“Oh my god.” Logan passed his hand on his face again. “Did anyone else hear?”

“The doctors. They couldn’t find a Veronica in your list of contacts, so they asked me about it. I told them I didn’t know who she was.”

“Good,” Logan replied absently.

“Are you okay, dude?”

Dick had never been Veronica’s biggest fan, and his dislike had deepened with every breakup she and Logan had had. He made an effort to be civil to her when she was dating Logan (she didn’t notice it much, but Logan did, and appreciated it), but now he’d had an 8-years-long grudge simmering against her, and he would jump on any occasion to remind Logan how badly his last run-ins with her had ended. _When you say hello, you risk a goodbye_ , was something Dick had told him, and it had been astonishing to hear something so wise coming from him. (And even more astonishing when Logan had learned Dick had paraphrased it from a Taylor Swift song, of all things.) Logan had kept it in mind though, alongside a sharp reminder of the goodbyes, to keep himself from trying something stupid, like reaching out to her.

“Not really,” was what he finally answered to Dick’s question on his wellbeing.

Dick just looked at him and gave an imperceptible nod before taking a long gulp from the beer in his hand. Logan hadn’t even noticed it was there. Interpreting his friend’s actions (or lack thereof) as encouragement to spill his feelings out, Logan started talking.

“I saw her at the conference. I know she wasn’t there,” he quickly said before Dick could say anything. “But I saw her face in my mind, in the crowd. And it was just… blank. Just looking at me.” If it had been really her, she would have smirked or raised an eyebrow, he thought, not maintained this unreadable expression. “When I was alone with Michael, practically freezing to death in the Ocean, it almost made sense, you know? To see her. Because I was away from everything and everyone, and if it was her that I saw then so be it. But now I’m back, you know, I’m here. In Neptune, with my people. And I still see her face in a crowd and it’s driving me crazy.” He was gesturing a lot by the time he got there, his languid despair evolving into anger. “You know what I hate?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. “I fucking hate that I kept thinking of Veronica when I was almost _dying_. I hate that her face kept swimming in my mind and that I kept hoping she’d actually be swimming towards me. I hate that after 8 years she still pays absolutely no rent, not a single fucking dime, to live in my mind perpetually. I hate that I had people who care about me waiting for me on the shore, and yet all I think about is her.” He hung his head, taking a breath, exhausted from the all anger he’d displayed in a few seconds. “I fucking hate it,” he repeated, quietly.

Dick stared at him, then said, almost under his breath: “Shit, man.”

4:31 PM

“What about you use your work phone, that way he won’t know it’s you?”

“I don’t have a ‘work phone’,” Wallace emphasized with air quotes, “and Logan doesn’t even have my number anyway!”

“He could search it up and see! Okay, why don’t we just use your phone _at work_?”

“You seriously want me to go to work on a Saturday so you can call your ex-boyfriend to hear his voicemail? V, do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“Yes. No. He’s not a _recent_ ex, so I’m doing it more like an old friend. What?” she asked upon seeing the look he was giving her.

“You want me to go to work right now,” Wallace reiterated with an incredulous face.

“Come on! You, me, our old hangs… It’ll be fun,” she asserted.

“No, it won’t.”

Okay, Wallace had to admit, it kind of was. They entered the school through the gym, to which he had the keys as the basketball coach who often had to be at school earlier than most of his colleagues and students, and made their way through the hallways. Veronica was looking around, lost somewhere between amusement, nostalgia, and relief.

“It’s so weird to be back,” she said, running her hand across a row of lockers.

Wallace shrugged. He had gotten used to being back, but it _had_ been a strange feeling the first few days of his teaching career. By now, he’d spent more time at Neptune High teaching than he’d had as a student, so he was nonplussed by most of what was around him, but Veronica seemed to keep getting lost in memory after memory.

_She closes the bathroom door behind him, heading to the counter to retrieve her bag. She looks into the mirror, straightening her clothes, smoothing her hair, pulling her pink jacket back in place. As she’s adjusting her pants, she feels something in her back pocket. She takes out the small note and unfolds it._

_“Come to my place tomorrow? We’ll have peace. I’ll pick you up. -L”_

_Veronica has to bite her lip to fight back a smile because she’s not 11, damn it, but the note makes her heart flutter. She wants to keep it, proof that she has a secret boyfriend – doesn’t that sound exactly like what Lilly loved to brag about when they were preteens, the hordes of secret boyfriends she’d one day have? – but decides against it because, again, she’s not 11. She takes out a pen from her bag and scribbles an answer underneath Logan’s words._

_“Be there or be square. -V”_

_She’s joking. Mostly._

_On her way to class, after filling in her absence slip (untraceable!), she slides the neatly folded paper into Logan’s locker._

“V? You okay?”

She shook from her reverie.

“Yeah.” Then, pointing to a door: “That bathroom used to be my headquarters,” she pointed out.

Wallace had a small laugh, shaking his head at the memory. He had not mentioned the number of times he’d been into the “out of order” girls’ bathroom over the years during his hiring interview, he’d focused on his illustrious basketball career at Neptune High and his obvious qualifications as a physics teacher. Surprisingly.

He led Veronica to the staff room and pointed to the landline phone sitting at the centre of the table as he sat down in one of the comfortable chairs he was always too late to get to sit in during staff meetings.

“Here is the object of our visit, Ms. Mars.”

Veronica bit her lip nervously as she grabbed the phone, hesitating over the dialing pad.

“You do have his number, right?” Wallace made sure, thinking it was probably a bit late in the endeavour to ask that kind of question.

Veronica nodded. “I looked it up.”

“Okay,” Wallace said, not telling her to just do it, but not _not_ telling her either.

She quickly dialed Logan’s number but before the last number, she looked up at Wallace.

“Can you do it?”

He sighed, but got up without a comment, then punched in the 9 she pointed to on the dialing pad, bringing the phone between the two of them, at face level.

After only a ring, they heard from the other end, “Hello?”

Veronica’s eyes widened in panic and she slammed the handset down to its place.

“What the hell?” Wallace exclaimed.

“I couldn’t actually say something,” she hissed.

“You know what we are, V?”

“What?” she asked, turning to him sharply.

“12-year-old girls,” he said, his face dead serious. “I said it yesterday, and I say it again. It won’t have been the teenagers I see every day that got to me, it will have been my own _BFF_.”

He sighed in mock resignation, then snickered when she hit his arm with a scowl.

“So what now?” Wallace asked after a second. “Wanna call again?”

Veronica shook her head, for the first time fully realizing how over the top and ridiculous the whole thing was.

“Back to my place?” Wallace followed up.

Resigned and slightly embarrassed (not too much, because it was Wallace, after all), Veronica nodded and stepped through the staff room door her friend was grandiosely holding open for her, a wide grin splitting his face in two.

He was having way too much fun with this.

7:35 PM

“Logan! That singer bitch is there to see you!”

“Dick, don’t call her –”

Before he had time to finish his sentence, he heard Carrie replying to his friend.

“Glad to see you’re still living up to your name, Dick,” she was saying, and Logan snorted from the couch.

“You’ve been avoiding my calls,” was the greeting she chose when she plopped down next to Logan.

“Just been busy,” he replied, which was not in itself false.

Carrie sighed.

“You doing okay?” she asked pointedly, and she sounded already annoyed at him. It only annoyed him further as he realized how much he didn’t want to be talking to her.

“Depends what your definition is, but as far as what people generally care about, yeah.”

It was her turn to snort. Then she sighed again.

“I’m sorry the news leaked because of me.”

Logan frowned, sitting up and properly looking at her for the first time since she’d gotten there.

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t decide to have your phone be tapped by reporters with no regards for people’s privacy.”

“Yeah. I was surprised to get the call. Well, you know. Then that surprise was trumped by the fact that you were _missing_ , but I didn’t expect them to call _me_.”

She looked like she was touched, maybe hopeful. Logan didn’t want to tell her he had simply forgotten to exchange her information with Dick’s as an emergency contact in the Navy’s database because his deployment had been too soon after their breakup, so he simply shrugged.

“What have you been up to the past few months?” he asked instead, because it _had_ been a while since he’d seen her.

“Uh, rehab. A little bit. Um. Not much. I’ve been writing a lot of music. I think I’ll probably have an album by the end of the year.”

“That’s great,” he said, and he meant it.

“I’m having it looked into,” she abruptly said.

“Huh?”

“The phone tapping.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t realized they were back on that.

“I just… want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. They’ll be coming to my house tomorrow to look for any bugs or cameras or anything else that might be there, just in case. And they’ll look to track down who planted it.”

“Good,” he said again, and he meant it again. “It’s important that you’re safe.”

“You know who’s back in town?”

Her sudden subject changes were dizzying, so he didn’t even try to guess.

“Who?”

“Veronica Mars.”

“Wh-what?” was all he could get out, his voice weak as all colour drained from his face and his brain short-circuited.

She had a small humorless laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He couldn’t keep up with Carrie, so he just asked another stupid question. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said, and shook her head, her purple locks brushing against his arm. “She was at her father’s office when I went to him,” she explained, in a last-ditch effort to have the completely dry conversation pick up a little. When he stayed mute, not knowing what to say, she sighed again. “She looked good. Being out of Neptune’s been good for her. I can’t imagine why she’d want to come back _here_. Even her father seemed surprised to see her. Go figure.”

Logan didn’t know why Carrie was suddenly so intent on telling him about Veronica Mars, and he didn’t know what to tell her.

“I wouldn’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t talked to her in years.”

“I know.”

She stood, looking around to gather her belongings before she realized there were no belongings to gather.

“I’ll get going. It was nice to see you in such form, Logan,” she said with a kiss to his cheek.

He walked her to the door and leaned against it for support once he’d closed it behind her. Veronica was in Neptune. Veronica was in Neptune, no one knew why, and she had really been at the press conference. He couldn’t be sure, given his hallucination tally of the past couple of days, but something deep inside of him told him that it had really been her. He hadn’t recognized her clothes, and all her other apparitions were straight copy-paste pictures from his past. Surely it meant she was really there, she was there, she was there.

“Dick, you’ll never guess who’s back in town,” he called after a while, pushing himself off the door and walking to the patio where Dick was lounging.

“If you say Veronica Mars, I’m going to punch you.”

Logan grimaced apologetically and gave a shrug as if to say, _not my fault_. Dick swore loudly.

8:29 PM

“Thank you for dinner, Mr. Mars. You really didn’t have to,” Wallace said as he brought his plate to the kitchen with Veronica’s.

“It was my pleasure, Wallace. Of course, if I’d known my daughter was back for the weekend, I would have prepared better,” he said with a pointed look at said daughter.

She raised her hands to claim her innocence.

“Impromptu study trip,” she told her father.

“Exactly how much studying have you gotten done?” Keith asked.

“More than you think,” she assured him. “ _And_ tons more tonight. No sneaking, no calling anyone, just me and my trusty textbooks.”

“What about your trusty Wallace?”

“My trusty Wallace probably had plans before I crashed his weekend, or so he has told me a few times in the last 24 hours,” she replied, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Eh, I think he’ll just stay home and grade exams tonight,” Wallace told her, “as solidarity.”

“Thank you ever so much,” Veronica told him, cocking her head and pulling an exaggerated face of thanks.

Wallace rolled his eyes.

9:42 PM

Veronica’s phone rang and she looked at the caller ID. When Wallace glanced at her, she showed him her screen.

“It’s a hidden number.”

“Probably someone who wants to sell you something,” he advised her.

She answered anyway. Wallace shrugged in disbelief.

“Huh,” she said after a second, looking at her phone strangely. “They hung up as soon as I picked up.”

“Maybe they were disappointed they didn’t get to hear your voicemail,” Wallace answered, fighting to keep the smirk from his face. The pillow he received in the face told him he had failed.

9:43 PM

“She picked up!”

“Isn’t that kind of the point of phone calls?” Dick answered, bored. He was trying very hard not to yell at his friend for falling into the trap of Veronica Mars once again.

“I just wanted to hear her voice. Her voicemail.”

Dick just stared at him.

“They can talk live too, you know.”

11:31 PM

“Hey, you free for lunch tomorrow?” Veronica looked up from her phone to ask Wallace.

“Nah, I’ve got a meeting with the team.”

“You’re meeting with your basketball team on a Sunday? Makes me happy I dropped out of cheerleading before they started pulling that kind of crap.”

“It’s the only time I can get them all to come. We’ve got a game Monday night.”

Veronica gave a small sound of understanding, then put her phone down and went back to the textbook on her lap.

“What, do you have a fancy lunch in the works? ‘Cause I can cancel the meet,” he teased.

“No you can’t,” she laughed. “I just thought I’d swing by to pick up my dad when he’s done at Carrie’s house and we’ll have lunch together. But I don’t have a car.”

“I can drop you off at his office before going to school.”

“What time is that?”

“8AM.”

Veronica made a face. Law school had her waking up awfully early these days, but she would still rather sleep in, especially on a Sunday.

“I’ll call Mac instead,” she decided, “but thank you.”

“I think that might be the first time you’ve thanked me for something so mundane.”

“Growth,” Veronica replied with a small laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. The Taylor Swift song mentioned is I Almost Do. The lyric is "I bet it never, ever occurred to you that I can't say 'hello' to you and risk another 'goodbye'".


	6. May 3

Sunday May 3, 2015

9:22 AM

Veronica woke up and went straight for the pot of coffee in Wallace’s kitchen, pouring herself a cup. Beside it was a small note, so she picked it up to get a better look at it.

“Don’t get into too much trouble. And don’t stalk voicemails. I left you a spare key in the pocket of your jacket. – your BFF”

Veronica snorted, taking another gulp of coffee. She still maintained it hadn’t been stalking to use her best friend’s key to Neptune High to get to the teachers’ room to call her ex-boyfriend to hear his voicemail. Everyone wanted to do that, they just didn’t because they weren’t as resourceful as her.

After finishing her coffee, she grabbed her bag, her jacket, locked Wallace’s apartment behind her, and decided to head to the beach to study. What was the point of being in Southern California if she wasn’t going to take advantage of the beach a small distance from her best friend’s apartment?

Less than 10 minutes later, she was sitting on the quasi-deserted beach at which she’d spent so much time as a teenager, textbook open and cue cards splayed out on her towel.

_“How many exams do you have left?” she asks him._

_It’s the summer of 2005, and Logan goes to school every day to catch up what he missed in the last few weeks of the school year. It annoys him that Veronica always has to wait until the late afternoon to come see him, but she doesn’t mind. His extracurricular activities bother her a lot more, but she decides it’s not a good time to bring it up._

_“3,” he replies, changing his books from his left hand to his right to slide his arm around her waist as they walk to his car._

_“I can help you study,” she offers, turning her head to look at him, “I took them all.”_

_“I’m sure you have better things to do,” he replies, words warm against her skin as his lips brush her forehead._

_“Better than spending the rest of the day at the beach with my boyfriend?” she asks with a smile._

_He grins. “When you put it that way…”_

_When they get to the beach – what will become_ their _beach, but is still only a beach where they hang out as often as they can – she takes cue cards out of her bag and looks up at him from her spot on the towel._

_“Are you gonna sit down?”_

_He nods, fighting a smile at the way she takes control of the situation, then drops on his back beside her._

_“That’s not sitting,” she points out, but she’s smiling too._

_He shrugs._

_“Gets the job done.”_

_“Okay,” she clears her throat. “Tell me about Newton’s three laws.”_

_“Did you make cue cards for this?”_

_“I made them for my exams last month. You’re not_ that _special, Echolls. Now, come on.”_

_“Uh, the first law is inertia.”_

_“Uh-huh. What’s inertia?”_

_He rolls his eyes and reaches up a finger to trace the length of skin visible under the hem of her shirt. She shivers, but keeps looking at him pointedly._

_“Fine. Objects that are in motion tend to stay in motion, all that jazz.”_

_“Hm… acceptable. The second law?”_

_He sits up and kisses her._

_“What are you doing?” she laughs._

_“Mnemonic trick,” he replies, smirking, then reclaims his position lying down on the towel._

_“Is that so?”_

_“Force equals mass times acceleration. You taught me that one, remember?”_

_She does. It was in between kisses in the girls’ bathroom, to catch him up on what he had missed of his physics class by being there, kissing her. An effective technique, then._

_“You already knew it,” she says instead._

_“Did I?”_

_“I won’t be there for your exam, you need a new mnemonic trick.”_

_“Drats. And here I thought you’d be willing to make up an excuse to come rescue me from certain failure.” He sighs dramatically._

_She has to bite back a laugh, but it’s useless as he pulls her down on top of him to kiss her neck and her jaw and her cheeks and she keeps half-heartedly reminding him he has physics to study, but her delighted laughter takes all credibility away._

She shook her head again. Was there any place in this town that didn’t remind her of Logan? Granted, she could have chosen another beach, but this one was close to Wallace’s apartment, and it wasn’t often crowded. And her feet had led her there. She couldn’t imagine a trip to Neptune without coming to their beach.

She could faintly make out surfers far away on the waves, and it was strange to see them without searching for one in particular, looking at the distant faces and squinting to make out their features. She looked back down to her book, closed her eyes to recite the contents of the cue card she was holding, then opened them again to check her answer. Spot on.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come, man?” a voice resonated behind her.

The voice sounded familiar, but it took a few instants to place it. When she recognized Dick Casablancas, her eyes widened in mild panic. She slowly scooted to her left, deeper in the shadows, hoping he wouldn’t see her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to speak to him… but she didn’t want to speak to him. There was a good chance he wouldn’t want to, either, but at the same time, he might not want to pass up an occasion to taunt and/or mock her. Better not risk it.

“Yeah. The doctors said no physical exertion. I didn’t even go on a run this morning.”

Veronica froze. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t the kind of reunion she was going for. Not that she had a plan, but this would just be awkward. A deliberate bumping into him, staged to make it look unintentional, was the way she wanted to go. She didn’t have much time left to plan one, but she still stuck to the idea. Besides, she’d seen him the previous day, it wasn’t _urgent_ to see him again. Right?

She angled her body away from the voices, peeping in their direction and lifting her textbook – way too heavy to look natural that she would hold it up in that manner – to hide her face. She was starting to believe Wallace. Maybe she _was_ a 12-year-old girl.

Dick was recognizable, even from the side and from several feet away. Same blond hair, same surfboard tucked under his arm, maybe not the same wetsuit but they all looked the same to her. In front of him, leaning against the barrier, was, of course, Logan. She would have recognized him anywhere, even if she hadn’t seen him just the day before. His Henley shirt was more filled than she remembered from high school and college, but in practically all aspects, he looked exactly the same.

“I’m gonna go check on Carrie,” he was saying. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

“The way I see it, you did her a favour, man. If you hadn’t crashed, she never would have found out her phone was bugged.”

“That’s certainly one way to look at it. Thank goodness I almost died, now my ex knows people are tapping her phone,” he replied with a sarcastic gesture. “Plus, she did me a favour too, in a way,” he added. “If she hadn’t told me she had seen Veronica at Mars Investigations, I –”

“Wouldn’t have called her like a buffoon and hung up when she picked up,” Dick interrupted, all but rolling his eyes at Logan.

“Well, yeah, but… you know,” he shrugged. “It’s nice knowing she’s near.”

 _You have no idea how near_ , Veronica thought, transfixed as she listened in to the conversation she probably shouldn’t have been hearing. But it was impossible to stop now. Not when they were talking about her and giving her some valuable information about her mysterious caller from last night.

Dick shrugged, disbelieving.

“Whatever. You have fun at Carrie’s, and try not to get back together, okay?”

That sobered Veronica. Logan laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

Logan left, walking back to his car, while Dick headed for the waves, not a look in Veronica’s direction. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whatcha doin’?” a voice asked right behind her.

Veronica jumped up and almost screamed. Her stealth instincts had _really_ deteriorated over the years.

“Mac, you almost scared me to death.”

“I noticed.”

Mac sat down beside her friend.

“I saw Logan on the parking,” she started carefully.

Veronica smiled at her.

“Yeah, I know.” She pointed at Dick’s retreating figure. “I heard them arrive.”

“Oh?” Mac asked, a gleam in her eyes. “What did you hear?”

“Logan is going to Carrie’s right now. My dad is there.”

“Do you want to go early?”

Mac seemed especially excited at the idea.

“No. Yes. Not _too_ early,” she finally decided. “Maybe just a few minutes.”

She buried her face in her hands.

“I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”

“No,” Mac replied. “Just… you remind me of you, but years in the past. The Neptune air does something to you. Or maybe it’s not _Neptune_ ,” she added with a smirk.

“Shut up,” Veronica mumbled, and Mac laughed.

11:47 AM

Mac’s car pulled up across the street from Carrie Bishop’s house (mansion, truly), parking behind Keith Mars’ nondescript black car. She looked at Veronica in the passenger seat.

“I know my duties only covered dropping you off here, but if you want me to come with you, I’d be happy to. Well, not happy, but as your friend, I would do it.”

Veronica smiled at her.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll just hang around by Dad’s car and wait for him to come out. Or anyone else to come out.”

“Do you know what car Logan drives?” Mac asked, eyeing the other cars parked nearby.

Veronica shook her head. It would probably be something fancy, but given the area, a lot of the cars were fancy. The only two cars that weren’t worth at least $50,000 she could see around were Mac’s and Keith’s. So unless Logan drove around with an “ECHOLLS” license plate like his parents had, she couldn’t recognize whether he was there or not. And she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have a custom-made plate, if only because his father loved them so much.

She took a deep breath, thanked Mac, and got out of the car. When she looked up as Mac drove off, her eyes fell on the door of Carrie’s house. It was opening, excruciatingly slowly in her eyes, but she realized it was probably being opened at a perfectly normal rate. She held her breath for a second and… nope. It was a woman she had never seen in her life. She vaguely wondered how many people came and went inside the pop star’s house, how easy it would be to plant a bug or 20 in there.

She was leaning against her dad’s car, checking her email on her phone, when the front door gave a light squeak again and she looked up, by reflex. Her breath stopped, but he didn’t see her immediately. He was looking at his feet climbing down the stairs, then he looked up to scan the street for his car and –

He saw her. She was transfixed, staring at him, and he stopped dead in his tracks. His arms fell lamely to his sides and he swallowed. She noticed the bob of his Adam’s apple as he did so, before chastising herself for looking at his Adam’s apple in the first place.

She was the first of them to move, offering a small wave and a timid smile. That seemed to get him out of his torpor and he walked down the rest of the stairs, crossing the driveway and returning her smile as she pushed herself off her father’s car and nervously pulled at her shirt. At _her_ , he was smiling at _her_. It had been one thing to hear him at the conference, another to cross his gaze for a few seconds, but seeing him actually react to her, well. It was a nice, warm feeling.

“Veronica Mars,” he finally said just as he was crossing the street to meet her.

“Logan Echolls,” she echoed. “Wait, I hear it’s Lieutenant Echolls now.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, almost like he’d forgotten, bowing his head modestly. Was he… bashful? That was a strange thing to see in him. A nice surprise. She smiled.

“Good to see you’re all up and running. The sea didn’t swallow you whole. Would’ve been a shame.”

He gave a small laugh, smiling brightly.

“Yeah, well, it can try, but it won’t get me,” he joked.

“Good,” she said, because there wasn’t anything else to say. Well, there were dozens of things to say, but none that seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

“Were you, uh… Were you at the press conference yesterday? I thought I saw you,” he asked, passing his hand in his hair absently.

“Yeah, that – that was me.”

“Oh?” He seemed relieved, somehow. “I didn’t know you were in the press.”

She made a face. “God, no, I’m not in the press. I was… I was there with a friend.” It wasn’t false. Hopefully he didn’t ask about the friend because she knew she couldn’t lie to him. “I, uh, actually I’m studying law. Nowhere near the press, hopefully.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t greet you, I –”

She raised her hand to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it. You were busy, everyone wanted to talk to you. And hey, you have a pretty good excuse for not being all there. Stranded at sea, you know.”

“You know I’m never too busy for you,” he said softly.

She didn’t have anything to say to that, and she was fairly certain she was blushing. So she did what she often did when it came to those things, and deflected the statement.

“So, are they letting you rest for a while or are you supposed to be back at work soon?”

“They’re giving me two months of leave,” he replied, nodding, and if he noticed she had ignored his comment, he didn’t show it.

“Two months of getting up before the crack of dawn and surfing, sounds nice,” she offered.

“Wouldn’t that be great,” he agreed. “No, I can’t ‘overexert’ myself, doctor’s order.” He took out his hands of his pockets for the air quotes, then put them back in. “I asked, and surfing’s off limits.”

She knew, but now she didn’t feel guilty about knowing it. She just nodded.

“Well, I should get going,” Logan broke the silence, taking a step backwards. “It was great seeing you,” he said honestly, his eyes so soft Veronica wanted to reach out and cup his cheek. “Do you want to maybe grab lunch sometime? I have a lot of free time on the horizon.”

“I’d love to,” she said truthfully (just because her heart raced at the idea of sitting down for an entire meal with him didn’t mean it was an unattractive offer), “but I fly out tonight. My finals start tomorrow.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise to hide his disappointment.

“I wouldn’t have thought you traveled during your studying time.”

“Yeah, it was, uh… an impromptu trip. But I’m glad. It’s nicer to study on the beach than in my apartment. New York is starting to get nicer this time of year, but it doesn’t beat California sun.”

She knew he remembered their numerous study sessions on the beach like she did. She smiled the same shy but open smile he was directing at her, and he asked her:

“I really do have to go, but if you’re ever back in town, give me a call?”

She nodded, her smile growing. “I will. Same for you if you’re ever in New York.”

He nodded too, before walking back to his car. A black BMW convertible, she noticed.

“Do you have my number?” he called as he sat down behind the wheel, the idea suddenly occurring to him.

“I’ll manage to get it!” she called back. She _had_ managed to get it, but again, it was probably creepy to admit it. Although… thanks to Dick, she knew he had done more or less the same thing about her, so she didn’t feel too bad about it. Still.

When he drove by her, he waved at her with a smirk – the smile had been lovely, but _god_ she had missed the smirk – and her face split in two after she waved back.

“Doing some catching up?” her father asked from where he was crossing the street towards her.

“It was just the polite thing to do,” she replied with a shrug.

“Uh-huh.”

They got in the car, and Keith turned on the ignition.

“You will be happy to know I removed all the bugs in Carrie’s house and deleted all the footage they had captured,” he told his daughter.

“That’s good. She should be clear for a grand total of 10 minutes,” she noted, buckling her seatbelt.

“Ah, so you also noticed how easy it is for anyone to slip inside.”

She snorted. “Hard not to.”

He nodded. “I told her, of course, but she waved me off, saying she trusted everyone who entered the house.”

“On the plus side, that means she’ll probably have to hire you again.”

“Veronica, we do this job because we want people to be _safe_. Not to have clients come back.”

“We?”

“Vinnie Van Lowe and myself, of course,” he joked, and she laughed.

“So where to?” she asked. “Lead the way.”

3:16 PM

Veronica heard the front door open and looked up from her textbook to see Wallace getting home.

“Hey, you! How was practice? Do you smell?”

“It’s nice to see you too,” Wallace threw at her.

“So,” he started once he’d dropped all his things in the apartment, “did you call anyone to hear their voicemail?”

“No,” she replied with as much dignity as she could muster. “It was not necessary.”

“It wasn’t necessary yesterday either,” Wallace pointed out, choosing an apple from his fruit bowl and biting into it.

She rolled her eyes and turned to look at him fully.

“You will never guess who called me yesterday. You know, the caller who hung up when I picked up?”

“Yeah? No, no, let me guess. A telemarketer.”

She rolled her eyes again and Wallace flashed her a mischievous grin.

“It was Logan,” she said, and his smile fell.

“Logan? _Logan_ Logan?”

“Yeah,” she said triumphantly at her friend’s bewildered face. “I heard him and Dick talking about it.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ why it wasn’t ‘necessary’ to call to listen to his voicemail. You stalked him instead.”

“I didn’t! If anything, he stalked me.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Okay, he didn’t stalk me, but I was at the beach first and just happened to hear the conversation.”

“And then you followed him home.”

“I didn’t! I went to meet my dad at Carrie’s house like I had planned. And it was just a happy coincidence that I overheard he’d stop by and I got there early.”

“Right, okay,” Wallace sniggered. “That makes sense. You ready for your final?” he added, pointing at her book.

“Yeah, I think so. Hey, can you drive me to the airport tonight?”

“Sure. I don’t really feel like correcting some more exams anyway. Especially since you made me ruin Brittany Johnson’s copy yesterday when you threw a pillow at me.”

“You brought that upon yourself, my dear Wallace.”

“Do you want a ride to the airport or not?”

7:44 PM

“Thanks for driving me, Wallace. And picking me up. And letting me crash at your place. And coming with me to the press conference. And barely implying I’m completely out of my mind.”

“Hey, anything for my BFF. Maybe next time plan a little bit in advance, though, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, and hugged him.

She watched him pull away and leave the airport, and just as she was about to head inside –

“So, Wallace is still your reluctant partner in crime, huh?”

“I wouldn’t say reluctant,” she said with a smile.

She turned around. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know. Lots of free time and all that. Thought I’d swing by,” Logan said casually, but there was something in the way he was holding himself that told her he was nervous.

“How did you know what time to come?”

“There is only one flight to New York tonight.”

“Right,” she said, taking a step towards him. “You’re quite the Sherlock Holmes.”

He shrugged modestly, a smile tugging at his lips. “I try.”

“So, uh, do you know when your next visit will be?” he asked casually. Everything he did, everything he said, was thrown with casualty, but with every word the air became more charged.

“Not at the moment. I don’t have anything planned. I kind of blew money that wasn’t exactly in my budget by flying out this weekend, so.”

He nodded, took a step towards her. There was hardly any distance between them anymore.

“Take care, and have a safe flight, Veronica,” he said quietly before dropping a light kiss on her forehead.

The gesture was so familiar, so tender, she could see in her mind the way his eyes closed when he did it, the way he was practically fighting to let his hands stay at his side instead of cupping her head. When he pulled back, she didn’t say a word, just leaned back in to kiss his cheek, her hand on his other cheek to steady herself.

_Hey, if he gets to do it, I get to do it._

He seemed surprised by the gesture, but didn’t comment. When she looked into his eyes, they seemed clouded over. She hadn’t pulled back all the way and they were probably way too close, and the air really seemed to be sparkling by then. She had to rail her thoughts and urges in.

 _That’s enough kissing for today. In fact, that’s enough_ touching _for today. You’re going to New York, he’s going to maybe get back together with Carrie, if Dick is to be believed. And I hate to say it, but I think Dick is to be believed._

She didn’t realize her fingertips were still on his cheek until she felt his own hand coming up to the back of her neck and suddenly his lips were on hers and – oh. No, the touching they had done before was definitely not enough touching for the day, because this – this was wonderful. She closed her eyes and grabbed the sides of his face and lost herself in him. Her luggage was on the floor and they were probably in the middle of something, but all she could feel were his lips on hers, his hand on her neck, his arm around her waist, fingers splayed across her back. All she could think about was _him_ , Logan, kissing her, his smell, the feel of his chest against hers, everything everything everything.

When they separated, panting, he leaned his forehead on hers.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed out, and then he was gone.

She looked after him, but he was walking straight ahead, not looking back. Her fingers rose to her lips, still warm from his.

_What just happened?_

11:21 PM

What the fuck was Logan sorry for? Leaving without explanation? Kissing her? Coming to see her off at all? Some other thing that had happened during the weekend? An old wound he thought hadn’t been properly healed? Something that was going to happen soon?

The most troubling part of it all was not that he had kissed her for the first time in 8 years without a reason, because she could still feel the tingle on her lips, the rush of blood throughout her body, her accelerated heartbeat and it was definitely pleasant. No, what troubled her was the apology because she didn’t know if they were on speaking terms again. Or any terms at all. Before seeing him at the airport, she had gathered they were on good enough terms that maybe she wouldn’t have to wait 8 years before talking to him again. During the conversation they’d had at the airport, she was even fairly certain they were at a place where she could shoot him a text when she was safely in New York. But with the kiss(es) and his apology… where were they? Was it still okay to call him? To text him? Were they going to pretend the past week had never happened and go back to not having a single contact? Or pretend the kiss had never happened and become casual acquaintances, two grown adults who could hold a civil conversation regardless of their heavy shared past?

She wanted to call Mac (or Wallace, maybe, but he’d probably had enough of that story) and ask her opinion, but she also didn’t want to tell anyone about the kiss. It was hers to keep, the memory to be relived over and over again in the comfort of her own mind, a window of longing making it easier to gloss over what had happened right after. If she closed her eyes, she could see him right in front of her, in the fraction of a second before he’d decided to kiss her.

And really, it had been a _great_ kiss. His technique had matured like fine wine, but he still tasted the same, it still felt inexplicably right to be kissing him, like their mouths fit together instantly. His fingers still knew which spot on her neck made her melt when he touched it. His jaw still felt the same in her hands, the permanent smoothness of his cheeks and sharp angle of the bones, the soft spot right below his ear where her finger lodged itself. The fiery warmth of his lips. It all took her back to being 19 and hanging on to a dysfunctional relationship with the absurd idea that if they just stayed together, it would work out because they loved each other and that should have been enough. But instead of taking the time apart they needed and coming back to one another with solutions for the next try, they just gave in over and over again, making up because they couldn’t stand to be apart. This time, they’d lasted longer apart, but they had jumped back into it without a proper conversation or thought, again. Maybe that was why he was apologizing. For not thinking. Maybe he was right. Maybe, whatever happened, they just couldn’t be together without destroying each other, because there was just too much. Too much passion, too much trauma, too much love, too much anger. Too much fear that it would crumble again. Too much confidence that it wouldn’t.

She closed her eyes, deciding to use the rest of the flight to sleep. It was past 2AM in New York, and she had an exam at 8. If her body let her sleep without waking her up, thinking of Logan, maybe it would be okay.

_“Did you have a fight with Logan again?” Keith asks, seeing his daughter’s sad face from the couch as he enters the apartment._

_“Yeah,” she sighs, “but it’s okay. It’s nothing.”_

_“Then why isn’t it solved?”_

_“We’re sleeping on it.”_

_He nods and comes to sit next to her._

_“What was it about?”_

_She shrugs._

_“He wants to go surfing with Dick and the others in Mexico this weekend. Which is fine!” she adds, defensive even if her father hasn’t said anything._

_He holds his hands up to show his innocence and lets her continue._

_“You know, he can have his freedom, and he deserves time with his friends and I can find things to do, it’s not like my life revolves around him. But it’s our last weekend before college starts, and we might not have much time then anymore. And he already had a surfing trip last weekend. And two weeks ago.”_

_“And what do_ you _want him to do this weekend?”_

_“I don’t know. Watch a movie. Go to the beach. He said we always do that.”_

_“I hate to say it, honey –”_

_“Don’t you_ dare _take his side,” Veronica replies, jabbing a finger at her father._

_“I’m not. But you could propose something a little more… snazzy, for your last weekend.”_

_“Mhm.”_

_He stands up, taps her knee reassuringly and heads to his room._

_“Don’t go to sleep too late, okay?”_

_Veronica nods. She’s still sitting in the couch, reading, when she hears a knock at the door a few minutes later. She looks up, peers sideways to identify the knocker, but when he moves around to make her see him through the door, she stands up to unlock it. She leans on the doorway, smiling at him._

_“Hey, you. Why are you here so late?”_

_“I’m sorry, Veronica.”_

_She frowns a little, steps outside and closes the door behind herself._

_“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not the end of the world.”_

_“I don’t want to fight with you.”_

_“We seem to be pretty good at that, though, no?”_

_He chuckles, once._

_“We are. But maybe let’s not go out of our way to excel at it, okay?”_

_She nods, smiling, and steps into his arms. They stay like this several minutes, him leaning against the railing and her leaning against him, head buried in his chest._

_“Can I say something even if we haven’t slept on it yet?” he asks._

_She nods against him, her hand positioning itself better on his back as he pulls away, just a little, to look at her._

_“I’d rather spend the weekend with you. I just thought that, maybe… well, I spend the weekdays with you, most of the time, and I don’t want to be the guy who forgets about his friends when he has a girlfriend.”_

_“I get it,” she tells him, and she does. “And what I suggested was pretty boring.”_

_“Nothing is boring with you,” he replies, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear._

_“Liar.”_

_He laughs quietly, his chest rising and falling against her and she just wants to stay there like that forever._

_“We could drive down to San Diego and go to the zoo,” she offers. “A day trip, you, me, and the tons of animals. Intimate.”_

_He smiles down at her again, brushing his knuckles against her cheek._

_“Yeah, I’d like that.”_

_He kisses the tip of her nose, and she tugs at his shirt to bring their lips together._

_“Did we just resolve a fight like two mature adults?” she asks, still mere millimetres from his face._

_“Hm, I think we did,” he agrees, kissing her again._

_“We’re so good.” Kiss._

_“We even did the kissing_ after _the resolution of the fight.” Kiss._

_“Can you believe it?” Kiss._

_“Not really.”_

_Kiss, kiss, kiss._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the kiss was possibly the most daunting part of this story. I think I rewrote it 5 times... Next up, we're back to New York!


	7. May 4 to May 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same idea here as when V flew to Neptune - here we're back in New York, and back on Eastern time.

New York City

Monday May 4, 2015

12:25 PM

Veronica had barely had time to get home, take a shower, and get changed, before she had decided to head to Columbia early. She’d decided against a nap, because it would just be harder to wake up afterwards, and loaded up on coffee instead.

She had managed to squeeze in some last-minute revision before taking the exam. She was fairly certain it had gone pretty well, for someone operating on as little sleep as her. This was for her, this was what she was supposed to be doing. Just because she suddenly felt completely out of place in the city after spending only two days back in Neptune, didn’t mean she belonged elsewhere. She was _good_ at law, and it wasn’t harming anyone around her. New York didn’t have the painful reminders of her past life like Neptune did, and it was her opportunity to be great. Her feeling of discomfort was only temporary, it would all get back in place soon enough.

She was in the subway on her way back to her apartment to study for the next exam when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

 _Have a nice flight?_ , the text read. She was about to answer Wallace when she saw the name above the message. It wasn’t Wallace. It was Logan.

_Okay, so we’re on texting terms, I guess. Let’s just gloss over the fact that you kissed me and then practically ran away._

Except she couldn’t gloss over it, so she put her phone back into her pocket without answering. Was his hurried apology supposed to be a way of telling her to forget what had just happened and to just go back to how it had been moments before?

_Well, tough luck, Logan, because I don’t forget._

Shouldn’t he maybe have known that by then? Veronica certainly wasn’t going to spell it out for him. She’d answer him later.

Thursday May 7, 2015

6:38 PM

She still hadn’t answered him, and she figured it would probably be weird to answer now. He’d have realized she wouldn’t answer and moved on to other things. Like getting back together with Carrie.

Saturday May 9, 2015

3:12 PM

Veronica regretted not having answered Logan’s text. It would have been easy to answer, short and sweet and friendly, and let them fall into something like friendship. Instead she’d decided to squash that idea completely and to go back to being nothing at all, like before. Wasn’t she telling herself less a week earlier that she would have rather hung on to the little they had created in a day than forget everything and go back to being strangers? She was an idiot, that was what she was, and she had ruined everything by running away, again.

It always came down to that, she freaked and isolated herself, and her relationships got destroyed. Then again, for once, she hadn’t been the first one to run away to salvage an awkward situation.


	8. May 14

Thursday May 14, 2015

11:53 AM

Freedom!

Veronica walked out of the class and handed in her paper, letting herself stop outside the door to exhale in relief. Her finals were over, and she was free to do what she wanted for the upcoming months. Her summer internship plans had fallen through, and it would have disappointed her any other year, but she was weirdly content with the idea of having no plans for three months. She could drive up to Maine, see what all the fuss was about. She could drive down to Florida and reinforce her belief that the Southern California beaches with which she’d grown up were superior. Or she could stay in New York and find a summer job in customer service because she didn’t have the money to leave on a trip. Ah, options.

She walked down the stairs, deciding to make one last pit stop at the cafeteria for a quick lunch before she went home, and it wasn’t until she was in line that she noticed the tall figure standing in front of her. There were two other customers between them, but she couldn’t mistake the lean muscles and brown hair.

She took a step to the left so she wouldn’t be talking directly in the ear of the girl in front of her, and asked, incredulous, “Logan?”

He turned around slowly, sidestepping to get out of the line too. He looked sheepish, but also happy to see her. It was a strange combination.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, accusatory, a mix between a whisper and a yell. She didn’t want to make a scene in the cafeteria, so she didn’t wait for his answer to motion for him to come outside with her.

As she guided them to a nearby park she hoped wouldn’t be too crowded, he started talking.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what came over me, I just had to see you, had to explain –”

“Had to explain what?” she turned back to him. The days of holding everything in, not telling anyone, had made all her feelings bubble, and now that she had an outlet for them, she could feel the anger she hadn’t let herself give into bursting out of her.

“You’re telling me you have a complete grasp on everything that happened that day? Because I don’t.”

He was staying so calm, his voice even, she could tell he was controlling himself, and it made her even angrier.

“I have a grasp on the fact that you’re an _ass_ , and that’s quite enough for me. How did you even find me?” she exclaimed, not even caring how loud she was talking anymore.

“You’d be surprised how easy it is to find the exam schedule for Columbia Law online.”

“Oh, so you’re stalking me now? First my plane, now this?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” he replied, his voice finally rising.

“I don’t care!” she yelled. “What the hell are you doing, Logan? You show up at airport before I’m supposed to leave for the other side of the country, then you _kiss_ _me_ , apologize for god knows what, and run away. Then you text me like you expect everything to be back to normal, like you haven’t just kissed me for the first time in 8 years, and a week later you show up at my freaking cafeteria when my finals are done. What are you trying to do here?”

“I was acting like a normal fucking adult,” he said, regaining control over his tone of voice, but everything about him still said he was angry, too. At her disbelieving face, he continued, “I made a mistake, I apologized, and then I tried to rebuild the bridge. I reached out. You couldn’t even be bothered to answer,” he spat out, bitter.

“You asked me how my flight was! How was that anything but avoiding what had happened?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Veronica, call it a conversation opener. You know, I normally lead with ‘I kissed you yesterday and I really enjoyed it but the rational part of my brain thinks it was mistake, so now I think we should discuss it’ but just this once it felt a tad inappropriate given that we had barely talked in years and you were on the other side of the country!”

He was more hurt than angry by then, wounded, every part of it seeping into his words. She was almost crying, in anger maybe, he didn’t know, but he didn’t dare reach out, scared she would snap at him or bite like an injured dog.

“What were you apologizing for?” she sobbed out, the tears falling across her cheeks.

“Everything. Not talking to you, before. Letting you become a thing of the past. Completely ruining the small cordial relationship we had started building in less than a day by kissing you.”

“You didn’t want to kiss me.” Her voice was small, broken.

“God, Veronica… I did. I’ve wanted to kiss you hundreds of times over the years separating us. I wanted to kiss you when I saw you at Carrie’s. And once I’d initiated contact at the airport and you’d _replied_ , I…” He seemed to look for his words, shook his head. “I lost control,” he squeaked out. “That’s not what friends do. That’s not what reasonable adults do. That’s not how I should be behaving with my ex-girlfriend. And I thought, you’ve probably moved on and that was completely inappropriate of me to do.”

Veronica opened her mouth as if to say something, the newfound softness in her eyes destroying him, but he held up his hand to stop her.

“Let me finish.” She nodded, mesmerized. “I want to listen to my head. I know I can’t just go barrelling into something anymore, because look where that’s gotten me in the past. Where it’s gotten us. It just ends up in an awful mess, and everyone gets hurt more every time. I still want to kiss you, Veronica.” He gave a small self-deprecating laugh. “I am a pathetic man still completely hooked over the girl he dated almost a decade ago. But I don’t want to force you into this, kiss you and then expect everything to be all sunshine and happiness again, because it doesn’t work that way. It didn’t work then, it won’t work now. And we’ve both changed, and I want to _know you_. And so I’m _sorry_ that I kissed you, because I don’t want whatever this is to fail again. I want to take it step by step. I want to be your friend, Veronica. If you’ll let me.”

She was crying again, big silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she held her arms around her own body. She nodded, couldn’t stop nodding.

“Can I hug you at least?” she managed to get out between nods and sobs.

He looked like he was going to start crying, too, and he opened his arms ever so slightly. She launched herself into them and held on like her life depended on it. Perhaps it did. She rested her face on his chest, just like it belonged, and his hand rested on her head to steady it. Their bodies seemed to remember exactly how they were supposed to be entwined, even if they had both changed over the years.

“I missed you,” Logan whispered into the top of her head, lips brushing her hair.

“Do you think maybe you’re burning a few steps by flying to New York for me?” she asked, her teasing tone he had missed so much coming back.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Do you think maybe you’d obliterated those steps by flying to Neptune for me?” he countered, his words as playful as hers.

“I didn’t come to Neptune for you,” she protested. “I have lots of important people in Neptune.”

“I talked to Wallace.”

She pulled away, shocked.

“ _You_ talked to Wallace? And he actually answered? The traitor.”

“Hey, we’re on the same side. Him as your friend and me as your aspiring friend. I needed some tips.”

Veronica nodded, deciding she didn’t need to know what had been going on to lead up to the moment, and snuggled back up against him. She was fairly certain friends didn’t hug that long, that intimately, folded into each other in the middle of a New York City park. She was itching to tilt her head up and kiss him lightly, feather her lips onto his. But she didn’t, because he was right. They had to take it one step at a time.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked instead, looking at his eyes instead of his lips. It wasn’t much more effective in distracting her, but at least she was trying.

“Nothing on the agenda,” he replied.

“I’m taking you on a tour of the city,” Veronica declared.

“What are you doing tonight?” he countered.

“Nothing on the agenda,” she said, a smile tugging on her lips.

“I’m taking you out to dinner,” Logan declared in time.

“You don’t even know the good places,” she told him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She thought maybe she should stop holding on to him so tightly, being so into each other’s personal space, or she wouldn’t resist.

“You can tell me,” he whispered, brushing away a strand of hair from her face.

Yeah, she wasn’t detangling herself from him quite yet.

10:37 PM

“You were right, that was delicious,” Logan nodded at Veronica when he joined her on the pavement outside the small restaurant.

She hummed in response, agreeing. She was slightly buzzed, having had a glass too many with dinner. He’d had as much to drink as she had, but he was handling it better, and he steadied her with a hand on the small of her back.

“Easy there, bobcat,” he told her softly, keeping his hand there to help her walk straight.

He didn’t realize what he’d just called her until she had sharply turned back to him, a second later than she normally would have without the alcohol.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Slipped out.”

“It’s okay. I was just surprised. You can call me bobcat,” she stage-whispered, touching the tip of her finger to his nose affectionately.

He laughed and took the incriminating hand in his.

“Let’s get you home.”

She turned to him again, and he couldn’t help smiling at how adorable she was.

“Where are _you_ staying?” she asked, the idea only occurring to her then.

He shrugged. “I’ve got a hotel booked for the week.”

“You can stay with me, on my couch” she insisted, “It’ll be easier that way.”

He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, he couldn’t resist.

“I don’t think so,” he whispered. “Friends, remember?” he added with a gesture between them.

She nodded. “Okay.”

She vaguely wondered how long they would manage to be friends.

“I’ll drop you off at home and take a taxi to the hotel, don’t worry about me.”

“Okay,” she repeated.

When they reached her apartment, Veronica fumbled with the key, still not seeing completely straight. Logan took it from her hands delicately and opened for her.

“You can come in, I won’t force you to stay, you know,” she called behind her shoulder at his figure in the doorway.

He nodded and came in, closing the door behind him.

“You want anything?” Veronica offered, looking into the fridge and taking out a bottle of water.

“No, I’m good. Thank you.”

He wanted a lot of things, but he’d told himself to take it slow, so.

“Want to watch a movie?” she asked, flopping down on her couch.

“Veronica…” he warned.

“Just a movie. Really.”

“Okay, I suppose that could be fun,” he agreed, smiling at her and sitting down next to her, leaving a respectable distance between the two of them. “What about Legally Blonde?” he asked with a smirk, “You’re basically Elle Woods.”

She laughed. “Basically.”

11:51 PM

It was a bit of a miracle that they had managed to keep their distance for nearly an hour into the movie. Then, Veronica had fallen asleep, her head dropped down to Logan’s shoulder, and it was definitely more contact than Logan thought they should have inside of something as tantalizing as Veronica’s apartment. Still, friends fell asleep on friends’ shoulders, right? Right.

Regardless, Logan paused the movie and extricated himself from under Veronica. He carefully let her fall to her side on the couch and went to get a blanket to cover her. He wrote a small note telling her he was going back to the hotel, left it on the kitchen counter, and tiptoed out of her apartment. There. He had made the smart decision.

In the cab, he called Dick to update him on the events of the day. Dick had been very opposed to Logan’s departure for New York, but had insisted to be kept in the know. He didn’t want to have to pick up pieces of Logan off the floor at the airport a week later.

“Hey, man. Didn’t get your heart broken into a million pieces yet?”

Logan rolled his eyes.

“Hello to you too, Dick. My heart is fine. It’s going great.”

“Awesome. Listen, dude, I got something for ya.”

“What is it?”

“Carrie came by today, asking about you.”

“Why?” Logan asked, genuinely curious.

“Because she wants to get back together again,” Dick said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. That you were doing good.”

“Okay. Good. Is that it?”

He heard Dick hesitate and sighed.

“What is it, Dick?” he asked again.

“She asked if she could see you, I said nah because you weren’t there.”

“You didn’t tell her where I was, did you?”

“Well, she insisted!”

Logan groaned. Every time he’d seen Carrie since he was back on firm land she’d found little ways to not-so-discreetly ask about Veronica, or mention her to gauge his reaction. If she found out he’d flown to New York, she’d immediately put two and two together. And then she’d either act smug about it for the rest of their lives or, when she was drunk or high or both, which was more often than either of them cared to admit, scream at him that he had never truly loved her and spent their years together thinking of Veronica. He hadn’t. Had he thought of her periodically? Sure. But for the length of his relationship with Carrie, he barely thought of Veronica, and certainly not in romantic terms, just nostalgia. There had always been a feeling of incompletion with her, and always remnants of love, but he had loved Carrie, too. But she wouldn’t see it that way.

“How did she react?” Logan finally asked.

“That’s the weird part, she didn’t.”

Dick was used to her outbursts too. When Carrie didn’t react, she was either stoned out of her mind, too much to properly register information (the most alarming possibility, but not very likely, since she had maintained a conversation with Dick and driven to his place), or sad. It was hard to get Carrie Bishop truly sad. Angry came easily, elated came artificially, and offended came frequently. Most of the time, what should make her sad made her furious at the world, cursing every person in existence. Logan couldn’t think of something that had made her sad, really sad, since Susan had died. He’d have to call her. Or better, go see her when he was back in Neptune.

“Check up on her tomorrow?” he asked Dick.

“Yeah, okay,” the blond grumbled.

“Thanks, Dick. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

If Dick agreed to check up on Carrie, he probably agreed that her behaviour was worrisome. If even Dick noticed, it was probably bad. Logan ran a hand over his face. Was anything ever easy?


	9. May 15

Friday May 15, 2015

9:27 AM

“I’m in the lobby. I would play the part of the poor wife whose husband is up in a room with a mistress, get mad at a few people, and they’d probably tell me your room number and maybe even give me your room key if I play up the tears. But we’re on a schedule, so I figured this was faster.”

“We’re on a schedule?” was Logan’s response, his sleepy words betraying that she’d caught him straight from his bed.

“You were still sleeping?” Veronica asked incredulously in her phone. “Are you in the military or not?”

“I’m still on Neptune time,” he countered.

“And even 6:30 is sleeping in,” she replied.

“Fine. You can come up, room 2209. I’ll order room service.”

“Ah, just like the good old days,” she mused. “But I’ve already had breakfast.”

“Who said the room service was for you?”

“Every single book on gentlemanliness ever,” Veronica assured, stepping into the elevator.

“Ah, but you forgot I was reading the bad boy manuals instead.”

“Logan, you were reading Jane Austen.”

“There never was a badder boy than Mr. Darcy,” he said with a nod.

Veronica snorted.

“See you in a sec,” she said, and hung up.

_There is really no place quite as prone to awkward moments like the strange yellow of the Neptune Grand Hotel’s elevator. In other places, you can generally escape. In an elevator, unless you feel like dying on the spot, there’s not really any way to properly make a timely exit. Even worse, there is no way to make it look credible that you didn’t see someone sharing the confined space._

_Regardless of all the cringe-worthy memories associated with this particular lift, Veronica is almost giddy to be in it. She isn’t usually one for that kind of sentimentality (unlike Logan), but today marks 4 months since she and Logan got back together, which is longer than any previous iteration of their relationship has lasted, so she planned something for them._

_She lets herself into Logan’s suite with the key he gave her and walks into what looks like a deserted room._

_“Logan?” she calls out, walking towards his bedroom._

_“Veronica?” he asks, walking out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist and another patting at his hair. “I didn’t expect you there.”_

_“Why, is there someone else in the shower?” she teases, walking up to place a kiss on his lips._

_He encircles her waist and snuggles his nose against her temple before pressing a kiss there._

_“Nope, it’s all free if you want it. I can show you around. You know, figuring out how it all works isn’t as easy as it seems.”_

_She laughs. “Smooth.”_

_He shrugs. “I try.”_

_She wiggles out of his grasp to go fetch the picnic basket she brought from where she dropped it upon arriving._

_“We have plans today, unfortunately,” she tells him, walking back to him, then brandishes the picnic basket. “Happy four months anniversary!” she smiles widely at him._

_He smiles even wider. “You remembered!”_

_“What, am I not a perfect girlfriend who remembers every significant date on the calendar?” she exclaims, feigning indignation, clutching imaginary pearls._

_“Sorry to be the one to tell you.”_

_“All my life, living a lie.”_

_He pulls her in closer to him and kisses her jaw, then her neck._

_“Thank you,” he tells her._

_“You haven’t even experienced it yet. For all you know, it’s going to be awful and I’ve only packed things you hate.”_

_“My_ perfect _girlfriend? No, impossible. She only plans perfect picnics, by definition.”_

 _Logan isn’t sure if the sound coming out of Veronica is a_ giggle _, but he has the distinct impression it is. It’s nice to see her carefree and happy._

_“About that picnic,” he says, “do you have anything tonight?”_

_“Hm, not currently.”_

_“They’re showing The Big Lebowski at a drive-in theatre not too far from here.”_

_“They_ are _?” Her eyes widen and she takes his face in her hands. “Man, that’s even better than the picnic.”_

_“It’s not a competition,” he says, kissing the tip of her nose. “But yeah, I totally won.”_

_She laughs again and brings his face to hers._

_“Go put on some real clothes, mister. The food will go bad if we don’t get to the beach soon.”_

_“What kind of food did you pack?” he asks, confused._

_“No peeking! You’ll have to hurry your ass and find out.”_

_“Fine, fine. I’ll be there in a second. You’re welcome to watch,” he adds with a wiggle of his eyebrows._

_“Go!” she points him to his room._

As she knocked on Logan’s door, Veronica felt a twinge of apprehension. He’d been at her place less than 12 hours previously, and she’d been to a hotel room of his dozens of times in the past. But there was something about knocking on someone else’s hotel room door that made her stomach churn. Would she feel that way if it was Wallace’s room? No, definitely not. But Logan was a more recent friend (in a way). Tentative. It was all good, this was normal, she could do it.

He opened the door and moved aside to let her in. He was wearing clothes (a victory!), but all his things were still scattered around the room.

“How did you make such a mess in one night?” she asked. “And didn’t the Navy train you to be more organized?”

“They trained me to pick up my messes promptly,” he corrected, picking up the pair of pants he’d worn the previous day from the floor. “Make yourself at home,” he added with a gesture towards the room.

She was about to hop onto the bed before she decided the desk chair was safer. Plus, the bed wasn’t made, so she would just have been in his way. That was a totally good reason to avoid the comfiest spot in the room.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked him.

He was indeed making the bed now, she noticed. He seemed to hesitate.

“That means no,” she pointed out.

He laughed the kind of laugh that only lasts one exhale.

“Well, there was the jet lag, obviously. And I was, uh, worried. Something going on in Neptune.”

“What is it, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just Carrie. I asked Dick to keep an eye on her, I’m not sure she’s doing so well.”

“Oh. I read she’d spent a few months in rehab. Is it true? Is she better on that front, I mean?”

“Yes and no. She didn’t finish it. I’m not sure if she’s quit or not. She always tells me she has, then I find evidence that she hasn’t. But I haven’t been around her much since, you know, everything, so I haven’t had any indication she’s still on the stuff. She could go back any time, though.”

He seemed genuinely worried as he massaged his brow.

“Let’s not talk about that. I’ve got my best man on the case.” At her raised eyebrow, he corrected, “I’ve got my only man on the case. I hear there is an exciting day in the city awaiting us.”

There was a knock on the door and Logan took the few strides needed to go open. He paid and thanked the hotel employee, then rolled the tray into the room. Veronica noticed he had ordered bacon. Logan didn’t eat bacon in the morning, at least he didn’t when they were dating. She smiled inwardly as he scooped the bacon on a plate separate from his pancakes and placed it innocently closer to her, sitting on the bed, the tray between the two of them.

“So, what does our day in the Big Apple look like?”

“All the overcrowded, overhyped tourist traps,” she beamed at him. “Then when that’s done, I can spend the rest of the week showing you actual interesting stuff.”

“Sounds like a solid plan. You don’t have to spend all your week with me, you know. I’m sure you have things to do and people to see.”

“Not really. Plus, you’re in a foreign city and I’m the only person you know. I would be a terrible friend if I let you wander the streets alone.”

“Well, thank you, then,” he told her.

She picked up a piece of bacon and he smiled.

4:18 PM

“You know, I am kind of enjoying those tourist traps,” Logan told Veronica, munching on the pretzel Veronica had bought from a street cart.

“You may act like a beach person, but you’re a city boy at heart,” she teased him.

She tore off a piece of the pretzel and popped it in her mouth.

“I am kind of surprised you’re enjoying Times Square, though,” she continued, looking up at one of the dozens of flashing screens around them.

“It’s alive. It never goes black, so you can never alone with your dark thoughts here. The light might be artificial and impersonal, but it’s light.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “I’d never seen it that way,” she admitted.

“See how useful it is to have me as a friend? I can make you rethink everything about your own town,” he joked, nudging her shoulder with his own.

“I’ll have to keep you around, then.”

“I hope so,” he said, just slightly quieter than the rest of the conversation. She smiled.

Suddenly, a group of chattering teenagers came out of the store they were passing, snaking into the mass of people already milling about on the sidewalk. In a flash, Veronica had lost sight of Logan in the crowd, glancing around at all the people blocking her view of who she was looking for.

Then, just as quickly as she’d lost track of him, she felt a hand close around her own and Logan pulled her to him.

“Thought I’d lost my guide for a second there.”

She kept holding on to his hand for the rest of the afternoon, just to make sure they wouldn’t get lost again. Better safe than sorry, right? Logan didn’t seem to mind.


	10. May 20

Wednesday May 20, 2015

6:37 PM

It had been a whirlwind of a week, spending the better part of every day together, from breakfast to dinner, and a number of times later than that. Veronica had taken Logan to all her favourite spots in the city, some more than once, made him try her favourite foods (except the crab cakes she loved so much because she felt maybe the New York experience didn’t have to include a trip to the hospital), and both of them had carefully avoided broaching the topic of how soon he’d have to leave.

“Dinner at my place tonight?” she asked him as they walked around Central Park, shoulder against shoulder.

“That sounds perfect.”

They had ignored the ticking clock all week, but as the sky was turning pink on their last day together, they could both feel they were living on borrowed time. Veronica’s heart clenched at the thought of being alone again.

“I’ll go buy some groceries, meet back at my place in an hour?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll start packing in the meantime,” he said softly.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead and sauntered away with a small wave.

7:26 PM

A knock sounded on Veronica’s door.

“Come in, it’s open,” she called out, chopping vegetables.

“Is Veronica Mars really making vegetables? Look at you, you’ve matured into a real adult,” he smirked.

“Is it more or less surprising than Logan Echolls being able to cook at all?”

“I’d say the same level.”

“The Navy are miracle workers.”

He nodded, his smirk turning into a small smile.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, it’s okay, I’m almost done. What do you want to do for your last night in the city?”

“I think we should probably talk,” he said quietly, meeting her gaze seriously.

“Yeah, we probably should,” she sighed.

A few minutes later, she had put everything to cook, and joined Logan on the couch, each a glass of white wine in their hand.

“So,” she said nervously. “How do we start a conversation like this?”

He put his glass down on the floor carefully and took her free hand in both of his.

“Veronica, I think you know how I feel about you.”

“Yeah?” she asked, and she couldn’t understand why her voice was suddenly higher than usual.

“Yeah.” He took a small pause. “And I think… I think it works. You know, this. Even after everything, I still want to be around you all the time. And I think if… if we gave it a try, maybe this time we have a shot.”

Veronica’s smile cautiously grew. “Yeah?” she repeated.

“But I’ll be in Neptune and you’ll be here. And regularly, I’ll be deployed and even if we lived at the same place, we wouldn’t see each other at all. And I won’t be able to tell you where I am.” He breathed in, his breath shaky. “So it won’t be easy. And I…” he exhaled. “I understand if you want to stay friends. I’d be happy to be your friend.”

Veronica had never been especially good with words, had let Logan handle those, at least the touchy-feely parts of it all. She couldn’t rationally explain her thoughts and feelings anyway, so she didn’t. She set her glass down next to Logan’s. Everything seemed slowed down, hazy. Everything except him, his hands, his eyes. She crawled over to his lap and took his face in her hands. She looked at him a second, watched the emotions flicker in his brown eyes, and then she kissed him.

His hands flew up to her shoulders, to her neck, to her hair, trying to find a place to anchor themselves, until they settled on the sides of her head, his thumbs caressing her cheeks lightly, lightly. Their lips danced together, like a well-honed choreography, something they’d rehearsed so many times that it didn’t matter they’d taken an extended sabbatical leave. They knew what to do, what to touch, and if the kiss at the airport had been frantic and surprised, this one was soft, loving, like fireworks you knew were coming but were starting to wonder if they’d show. And when they did, it was an explosion of light, colour, wonderment. Every new burst of sparkles showering them with a wave of excitement. Every meet of their lips a brand new surge of adrenaline.

“Veronica…” Logan murmured against her lips. It was like he couldn’t believe she was there, between his hands, on his lap, so close to him.

“Shh…” she replied, resting her forehead against his. He nodded and kissed her again, because he couldn’t stop once he’d started, he had missed her, missed this, too much. He had 8 years of catching up to do, and he was hungry for more.

“Would you say I’m a terrible host if I took you to my room instead of checking up on dinner?” she panted, pulling away just a few centimetres.

Instead of an answer, he hoisted her up in his arms, her legs instinctively wrapping themselves around him, and carried her to her bed, kissing her over and over again. They could have dinner later.

10:49 PM

“Boy am I glad we had that talk,” Veronica declared, falling back against her pillows.

Logan chuckled and turned to look at her, resting his head on his arm – god, that _arm_ , Veronica was pretty sure he hadn’t had such buff arms in high school. Or such a defined chest. She ran a finger along his chest, from his abs all the way to his neck.

“Come back to Neptune with me,” he said, all serious.

Her face fell slightly. “Logan, you know I can’t.”

“I’ll pay your ticket. You can stay with me.”

“We have to get used to the distance, you know it.”

It pained her to do this to him, to tell him those words, but she knew she was right. And she knew he knew, too. He sighed.

“I know. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“I know,” she replied, lacing her fingers through his. “Maybe later in the summer, okay?”

He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of her hand.

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes and tangled her legs into his.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Remembering this. Storing it with all the other memories of you.”

“Do you keep a lot of them?” he breathed against her shoulder. She could feel the words on her skin.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice strangled. “Do you?”

He nodded and kissed her fingers.

_“I love you,” he mutters against her temple. He thinks she’s asleep, she’s been lifeless for at least five minutes, her breath even, her eyes closed, her back slumped against his chest. She’s not._

_“I know,” she whispers, the sound barely leaving her lips._

_He looks surprised, and she has a small smirk._

_“God, I hate you.”_

_“No you don’t.”_

_“No, I don’t,” he nods, pressing his lips to her forehead lazily._

_She takes his hand from its resting place on her stomach and brings it to her lips. It’s so warm, she marvels._

_She doesn’t say the words, but he doesn’t need to hear them. He knows, too, even if she’s never said it, and the way she closes her eyes voluptuously as she presses kisses along his palm says it enough. He slowly tightens his arm around her waist to bring her closer to his chest, and presses his face to her hair tenderly._

_This time, when he speaks up again, she really is asleep, can’t hear the strain in his voice betraying the clench of his heart._

_“Please don’t leave, this time.”_

They could both feel the minutes being ripped away, one at a time. Veronica moved closer to him, encircling his waist, clutching him close to her. If she held on tightly enough, maybe she could keep all those minutes safely tucked between them, in her bed.

“Can I tell you something?” Logan asked, stroking her hair.

She nodded absently, running her fingers on his back.

“No strings attached, I just… wanted you to know before I go back.”

She nodded again, her breath hitching.

“I love you,” she blurted out before he could say anything.

“You stole my line,” he said flatly.

She looked up to him to see the twinkle in her eye reflected in his.

“I love you, Veronica Mars,” he whispered in her ear.

She slinked her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

“Good to know we’re on the same page.”

“Say it again,” he murmured.

“Good to kn –”

He flipped them to be on top of her, and tickled her side.

“Okay, okay.” She took a deep breath and looked right into his eyes. “I love you, Logan Echolls.”

“Took you long enough,” he replied, all smiles, and she knew he didn’t mind.

She realized she had probably never seen him smile so brightly before. If that was all that it took, then she made a mental note to tell him as often as possible.

“I love you,” she repeated, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All we have left now is the epilogue :)


	11. Epilogue

** Epilogue **

Neptune

July 13, 2016

“I feel like maybe I should have a speech ready or something,” Veronica remarked, dropping the last box in her new apartment.

“What, like, ‘thank you all for coming for this momentous occasion of not seeing what the apartment will look like, just a mess of boxes’?” Logan asked, walking in behind her with her suitcase.

“Exactly that,” she nodded, craning her neck to reach up and kiss him.

“Mhm, you can make one up on the fly. Since ‘you all’ is just me, I promise not to judge too harshly.”

She laughed and gave his stomach a quick pat.

“Come on, let’s start unpacking.”

“This is _your_ apartment, Mars. I am here purely out of the goodness of my heart.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Fine, okay,” he replied, opening a box labeled “kitchen”.

“You can just start putting the plates in the cupboards,” she told him, pointing to the kitchen. “I’ll get started with the clothes.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Hours later, they dragged a towel to the beach to have an impromptu celebratory move-in picnic in their spot. She hadn’t had the occasion to come to the beach too much in the past year, especially given how short her trips to Neptune had been, but they had made it a point to at least dip their toes in the sand once per stay. Just for old times’ sake.

It hadn’t been an especially easy year, having a boyfriend on the other side of the country, who was on top of that in the Navy and occasionally unreachable for days on end, but they had managed. It was a bit of a revelation that a relationship was a lot smoother and healthier when she wasn’t constantly out to get Logan, trying to find the flaw and expose it. There were some, she was sure. But she no longer felt the need to investigate every detail she didn’t know, because she knew there were some things of Logan she would never understand, and she accepted that now. It wasn’t to say she would turn a blind eye on everything and ignore warning signs if they were ever to show up. But part of growing up was letting go of things out of her control and loosening her grip on the people she loved. And part of loving Logan was accepting that he was a complex person who had had a difficult path leading to her, and not judging the way he dealt with it. Maybe that was what had been missing all those years ago. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time. But finding each other again, having grown up, had turned out to be exactly what they both needed.

Throughout the year, she’d also finished law school, finally deciding to move back to Neptune with everyone she loved once she had completed her degree. She had found a job right there in San Diego, and that was perfect for her for the time being.

Logan still lived at Dick’s. They both needed the company, even if neither of them would really say it out loud. Besides, he was on deployment often enough that they didn’t drive each other crazy. Plus, now that Veronica was back in Neptune, he foresaw a lot of time over at _her_ place.

Veronica’s phone pinged with a notification. She looked at it and smiled.

“Who is it?” Logan asked, setting the towel down and sitting, his back to the setting sun.

“Wallace. He asks if I moved in all right or if you distracted me all day.”

“Why not both?” he replied, popping a cherry tomato in his mouth.

She texted her reply and put her phone down before turning to her boyfriend, already sprawled on his side. He never could stay seated on the beach for long.

“How’s Carrie?” she asked.

“Better. She got out of rehab a few days ago. Actually went through the whole thing, if you’ll believe it. Cut ties with Sean.” He contemplated for a second before adding, “I think she’ll be okay.”

“That’s good,” Veronica nodded, taking a bite of her sandwich.

“And how is my favourite person feeling about moving back to this hellhole of a town?”

“Dick moved out?”

He rolled his eyes. Veronica smirked.

“I’m feeling grand,” she decided.

“Grand?” he laughed.

“Grand,” she confirmed.

“I like that. Well then, I’m feeling grand as well.”

“Why wouldn’t you be? You’re here with your wonderful girlfriend,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“We’ll be okay, won’t we?” Logan asked, brushing a crumb from the corner of Veronica’s mouth. She pretended to bite the tip of his finger.

“I think we will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there it is! I hope you enjoyed this story and I appreciate any feedback <3


End file.
